Lindtner 


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STANGELAND 


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ELSIE  LINDTNER 


BV  THE  SAME  A  UTtTOR 

THE  DANGEROUS   AGE 

Letters  and  Fragvtents  from 
a  Woman's  Diary 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

A  Sequel  to  "The  Dangerous  Age" 

BY 

KARIN  MICHAELIS 
STANGELAND 


AUTHORIZED  TRANSLATION 
BY 

BEATRICE  MARSHALL 


NEW  YORK 

JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 

MCMXII 


Copyright,  191 2,  by 
JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 


pi' 


PREFACE 

READERS  and  admirers  of  "The  Dan- 
gerous Age" — and  their  name  is 
legion — will  find  themselves  perfectly 
at  home  in  the  following  story.  To  them, 
Elsie  Lindtner's  rambling  aphorisms,  her 
Bashkirtseffian  revelations  of  soul,  the  remark- 
ably frank  letters  which  she  delights  to  write 
to  her  friends,  among  whom  she  numbers  her 
divorced  husband;  above  all,  her  rather  pre- 
posterous obsession  with  regard  to  the  dangers 
of  middle  age,  will  be  familiar  as  a  twice- 
told  tale. 

Doubtless  many  will  be  charmed  to  meet 
Elsie  Lindtner  again,  when  she  has  passed 
through  the  dreaded  furnace  of  her  "forties," 
and  is  still  keeping  the  spark  of  inextinguish- 
able youthfulness  alive  within  her,  by  gam- 


LISEURf 


PREFACE 

bling  at  Monte  Carlo,  travelling  in  Greece 
with  Jeanne  of  the  flaming  hair,  fencing  in 
London,  riding  in  New  York,  and  finally 
finding  happiness  and  salvation  in  the  adop- 
tion of  a  small  offscouring  of  the  streets. 

But  for  those  who  may  have  missed  reading 
the  little  masterpiece  of  modern  femininity 
which  only  a  short  time  ago  set  a  whole  conti- 
nent by  the  ears,  some  sort  of  key  is,  pos- 
sibly, necessary  to  the  enjoyment  of  "Elsie 
Lindtner." 

In  "The  Dangerous  Age"  Elsie  Lindtner 
writes  an  autobiographical  letter  to  Joergen 
Malthe,  the  rising  young  architect,  who  has 
been  her  ardent  admirer.  She  tells  him  now 
that  her  mother  died  when  she  was  born,  and 
her  father  was  bankrupt,  and  lived  disgraced 
in  retirement,  while  she  was  left  to  the  care 
of  a  servant  girl. 

From  her  she  learnt  that  lack  of  money  was 
the  cause  of  their  sordid  life,  and  from  that 
moment  she  worshipped  money. 


PREFACE 

*'I  sometimes  buried  a  coin  that  had  been 
given  me,"  she  writes,  "as  a  dog  buries  a 
bone." 

When  she  went  to  school  little  Elsbeth 
Bugge  was  soon  informed  that  she  was  "the 
prettiest  girl  in  the  school";  that  a  pretty  face 
was  worth  a  fortune. 

"From  that  moment  I  entered  upon  the 
accursed  cult  of  my  person  which  absorbed 
the  rest  of  my  childhood  and  all  my  first 
youth.  ...  I  avoided  the  sun  lest  I  should 
get  freckles ;  I  collected  rain  water  for  wash- 
ing; I  slept  with  gloves,  and  though  I  adored 
sweets,  I  refrained  from  eating  them  on  ac- 
count of  my  teeth.  I  spent  hours  brushing 
my  hair." 

One  day  when  she  came  home  she  found 
the  only  big  mirror  in  the  house  had  been 
transferred  from  her  father's  room  and  hung 
in  her  own. 

"I  made  myself  quite  ill  with  excitement, 
and  the  maid  had  to  put  me  to  bed.     But 


PREFACE 

later  on,  when  the  house  was  quiet,  I  got  up 
and  lit  my  lamp.  I  spent  hours  gazing  at 
myself  in  the  glass.  There  I  sat  till  the  sun 
rose." 

Then  follows  an  account  of  how  this  child, 
scarcely  in  her  teens,  positively  set  her  cap 
at  a  rich,  elderly  widower,  because  he  had  a 
fine  house. 

"My  brain  reeled  as  I  said  to  myself,  'Some 
day  I  will  live  in  that  house  as  wife  of  the 
Chief  Magistrate.' " 

The  precociousness  of  Marie  Bashkirtseff 
who  fell  in  love  with  a  duke  when  she  ought 
to  have  been  playing  with  her  dolls,  pales  into 
insignificance  beside  this  confession. 

Elsie  left  school  and  went  back  to  Den- 
mark engaged  to  Herr  von  Brincken,  the 
Chief  Magistrate,  but  he  had  heart  disease 
and  she  did  not  marry  him.  Instead  she  mar- 
ried Richard  Lindtner,  a  wealthy  Dane,  and 
made  her  home  with  him  in  the  Old  Market 
Place  at  Copenhagen,  where  for  twenty-two 


PREFACE 

years  she  was,  to  outward  appearances,  a 
happy  and  contented  wife. 

"I  allowed  my  senses  to  be  inflamed  while 
my  mind  remained  cold  and  my  heart  con- 
tracted with  disgust.  I  consciously  profaned 
the  sacred  words  of  love  by  applying  them  to 
a  man  whom  I  chose  for  his  money.  Mean- 
while, I  developed  into  the  frivolous  society 
woman  everybody  took  me  to  be.  Every 
woman  wears  the  mask  which  best  suits  her 
purpose.     My  mask  was  my  smile.  .  .  ." 

It  is  only  in  this  book,  the  second  instal- 
ment of  Elsie  Lindtner's  fragmentary  diary 
and  correspondence,  that  she  gives  us  a  reason 
for  leaving  her  husband  after  twenty-two 
years  of  married  life,  the  wish  that  he  should 
have  children.  In  "The  Dangerous  Age" 
she  hints  at  other  and  various  reasons.  To 
her  friend  and  cousin,  Lili  Rothe,  the  perfect 
wife  and  mother  of  "lanky  daughters,"  who 
could  love  another  man  passionately  without 
ceasing  to  love  her  husband,  she  writes,  when 


PREFACE 

announcing  her  divorce,  "There  is  no  special 
reason  .  .  .  none  at  least  that  is  explicable  to 
the  world.  As  far  as  I  know  Richard  has  no 
entanglements,  and  I  have  no  lover.  There 
is  no  shadow  of  a  scandal  connected  with  our 
separation  beyond  that  which  must  inevitably 
arise  when  two  middle-aged  partners  throw 
down  their  cards  in  the  middle  of  a  rubber. 
.  .  .  My  real  reason  is  so  simple  and  clear 
that  few  will  be  content  to  accept  it.  .  .  .  You 
know  that  Richard  and  I  have  got  on  as  well 
as  two  people  of  opposite  sex  can  do.  There 
has  never  been  an  angry  word  between  us. 
But  one  day  the  impulse — or  whatever  you 
like  to  call  it — took  possession  of  me  that 
I  must  live  alone — quite  alone,  and  all  to 
myself.  Call  it  an  absurd  idea  .  .  .  call  it 
hysteria — which,  perhaps,  it  is — I  must  get 
right  away  from  everybody  and  everything. 
Joergen  Malthe  has  planned  and  built  a  little 
villa  for  me  in  the  belief  that  it  was  for  some 
one  else.    The  house  is  on  an  island,  the  name 


PREFACE 

of  which  I  will  keep  to  myself  for  the 
present. 

In  her  self-communings,  however,  she  never 
disguises  the  fact  that  escape  from  boredom 
was  the  main  motive  of  her  returning  to  the 
White  Villa. 

"Richard  is  still  travelling,  and  entertains 
me  scrupulously  with  accounts  of  the  sights 
he  sees  and  his  lonely  nights.  ...  As  in 
the  past,  he  bores  me  with  his  interminable 
descriptions,  and  his  whole  middle-class 
outlook.  .  .  ." 

Richard's  neatness  and  tidy  ways  bored  her; 
his  correctness  in  the  convenances;  even  his 
way  of  eating,  and  "to  watch  him  eat  was  a 
daily  torture." 

"Sundays  were  no  better  in  the  Old  Market 
Place.  There  I  had  Richard  from  morning 
till  night.  To  be  bored  alone  is  bad;  to  be 
bored  in  the  society  of  one  other  person  is 
much  worse.  To  think  that  Richard  never 
noticed  it!     His  incessant  talk  reminded  me 


PREFACE 

of  a  mill-wheel,  and  I  felt  as  though  all  the 
flour  were  blowing  into  my  eyes." 

In  another  place  she  says :  "I  am  now  sure 
that  even  if  the  difference  in  our  own  age  did 
not  exist,  I  could  never  marry  Malthe.  .  .  . 
I  could  do  foolish,  even  mean  things  for  the 
sake  of  the  one  man  I  loved  with  all  my  heart. 
.  .  .  But  set  up  a  home  with  Joergen  Malthe 
— never!" 

The  terrible  part  of  home-life  is  that  every 
piece  of  furniture  in  the  house  forms  a  link  in 
the  chain  which  binds  two  married  people 
long  after  love  has  died  out — if  indeed  it  ever 
existed.  Two  human  beings — who  differ  as 
much  as  two  human  beings  always  must  do — 
are  forced  to  adopt  the  same  tastes,  the  same 
outlook.  The  home  is  built  upon  this  inces- 
sant conflict. 

"How  often  Richard  and  I  gave  way  to 
each  other  with  a  consideration  masking  an 
annoyance  that  rankled  more  than  a  violent 
quarrel.  .  .  .  What  a  profound  contempt  I 


PREFACE 

felt  for  his  tastes  and,  without  saying  so,  how 
he  disapproved  of  mine.  No,  his  home  was 
not  mine,  although  we  lived  in  it  like  an  ideal 
couple.  My  person  for  his  money — that  was 
the  bargain  crudely  but  truthfully  expressed." 


Even  in  her  White  Villa,  on  its  island  with 
a  forest  of  her  very  own,  Elsie  Lindtner,  to 
her  intense  disappointment,  was  bored.  She 
lived  there  with  two  servants,  Torp,  the  cook 
(a  delightful  figure),  who  believed  in  spooks, 
and  whose  teeth  chattered  when  she  told  ghost 
stories;  and  Jeanne,  the  mysterious  young 
housemaid  with  "amber  eyes"  and  hair  that 
glowed  like  red  fungi  against  the  snow,  who 
wore  silk  stockings,  and  won  Elsie's  heart  by 
admiring  and  dressing  Elsie's  own  wonderful 
hair.  Jeanne  became  the  salient  interest  in 
Elsie's  hermit  life  on  the  island,  and  was  pro- 
moted to  the  intimacy  of  companion  and  con- 
fidante.    It  was   Jeanne   who    arranged   the 


PREFACE 

flowers  artistically  with  her  "long,  pointed 
fingers,"  and  picked  up  her  skirts  disdainfully 
when  she  passed  the  flirtatious  gardener,  to 
whose  fascinations  Torp,  the  cook,  became  a 
hapless  prey.  Torp  "made  herself  thin  in 
collecting  fat  chickens  for  him,"  and  he  played 
cards  with  her  in  the  basement  kitchen. 

Jeanne  rowed  hard  in  the  little  white  boat 
across  the  lake  to  catch  the  last  post  with 
Elsie's  fatal  invitation  to  Malthe.  "I  will 
never  part  with  Jeanne,"  Elsie  said  as  she 
watched  her.  Then  she  wandered  at  random 
in  the  woods  and  fields,  and  scarcely  seemed 
to  feel  the  ground  under  her  feet.  The  flow- 
ers smelt  so  sweet,  and  she  was  so  deeply 
moved. 

"How  can  I  sleep?  I  feel  I  must  stay 
awake  until  my  letter  is  in  his  hands.  .  .  . 
Now  it  is  speeding  to  him  through  the  quiet 
night.  The  letter  yearns  towards  him  as  I  do 
myself.  ...  I  am  young  again,  yes,  young, 
young!     How  blue  the  night  is." 


PREFACE 

But  she  could  not,  alas,  young  as  she  felt, 
get  into  the  white  embroidered  muslin  which 
used  to  become  her  so  well,  and  Malthe's  first 
glance  told  her  all. 

"He  cast  down  his  eyes  so  that  he  might  not 
hurt  me  again."  One  reads  of  tears  of  blood. 
".  .  .  During  the  few  hours  he  spent  in  my 
house  I  think  we  smiled  'smiles  of  blood.'  " 

Malthe  left  the  White  Villa  the  same  night, 
and  said  at  parting,  "I  feel  like  the  worst  of 
criminals." 

After  this  shattering  blow  Elsie  in  her  de- 
spair craved  for  even  the  boring  society  of  the 
husband  she  had  deserted.  She  was,  to  use 
her  own  expression,  "greedy  of  Richard's 
caresses,"  and  invited  him,  too,  to  visit  her  on 
her  island.  But  Richard  declined  altogether. 
He  had  just  become  engaged  to  a  girl,  "a 
mere  chit  of  nineteen." 

"He  has  made  a  fool  of  mel  I  am  done 
for.  Nothing  is  left  to  me  but  to  efface  my- 
self as  soon  as  possible." 


PREFACE 

Elsie  Lindtner's  method  of  effacing  herself 
for  the  second  time  was  to  quit  her  desert 
island,  and  take  a  Cook's  tour  round  the  world 
with  Jeanne. 

Thus  it  happens  that  we  renew  acquaint- 
ance with  her  breaking  the  bank  at  Monte 
Carlo  in  the  first  pages  of  this  book  to  which 
she  has  given  her  own  name,  though  it  might 
just  as  appropriately  have  been  entitled  **More 
Dangerous  Age  Reflections."  For  here, 
again,  the  "transition"  is  the  absorbing  topic 
of  Elsie  Lindtner's  thoughts  and  correspond- 
ence; one  might  almost  say  it  is  "the  bee  in 
her  bonnet."  Even  when  she  has  emerged 
triumphantly,  as  she  boasts  afterwards,  from 
its  perils,  and  has  found  a  new  source  of  in- 
terest and  happiness  in  the  street  arab  whom 
she  has  adopted,  she  seems  unable  to  keep  the 
subject  out  of  her  conversation  and  letters. 
She  goes  so  far  as  to  warn  strangers  of  the 
"stealthy  footsteps  of  the  approaching  years," 
and  disputes  with  her  dear  friend,  the  extraor- 


PREFACE 

dinary  widow,  Magna  Wellmann,  which  of 
them  came  through  those  years,  "when  we  are 
all  more  or  less  mad,"  with  the  greatest  eclat. 
In  "Elsie  Lindtner"  we  miss  the  mise  en 
scene  of  the  White  Villa  on  the  island,  with 
its  forest  and  lake,  for  when  Elsie  re-visits  it 
with  Kelly,  it  hardly  seems  the  same  place, 
with  no  Torp  and  no  gardener.  .  .  .  We  miss, 
too,  the  first,  fine,  careless  rapture  of  feminine 
revolt  which  characterises  "The  Dangerous 
Age,"  and  the  Jeanne  of  these  pages  is  not  so 
vivid  as  the  Jeanne  of  the  former  book.  In 
compensation  we  have  more  of  Magna,  and 
we  have  Lili  Rothe's  love-letters — which  were 
addressed  but  never  sent  to  the  man  she  loved. 
Also,  as  in  the  previous  volume,  we  have 
Elsie  Lindtner's  letters,  with  their  strange, 
pathetic  eloquence,  marvellously  revealing  a 
woman's  complicated  soul.  Their  literary 
merit  and  their  value  as  a  picture  of  life  can- 
not fail  to  impress  all  readers. 

Beatrice  Marshall. 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 


Elsie    Lindtner 


Monte  Carlo. 

DEAR  Richard, 
Thank  you  for  the  money,  and  for- 
give my  audacious  telegram.     I  am 
directing  this  letter  to  your  office,  as  it  has 
nothing  to  do  with  domestic  affairs. 

You  really  must  help  me.  We,  Jeanne  and 
I,  are  stranded  here  like  a  pair  of  adventur- 
esses, and  don't  know  what  to  do.  I  have 
wired  to  my  lawyer,  who  has  simply  replied 
with  an  unconditional  "No."  The  creature 
seems  to  think  he  has  the  right  to  manage  my 
fortune  as  well  as  myself.  Naturally,  I  find 
it  far  from  pleasant  to  be  obliged  to  apply  to 
you,  but  you  are  the  only  person  I  can  think 
of  to  whom  I  can  turn  without  risking  a 
refusal. 

I  have  been  gambling,  winning  and  losing, 

21 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

finally  losing.  I  am  overdrawn,  and  the  last 
draft  which  Riise  had  the  grace  to  send  me  is 
gone. 

Your  money  kept  me  going  for  two  hours, 
but  now  that  is  gone,  too.  I  have  pawned  the 
few  valuables  I  possessed,  but  I  am  deter- 
mined to  win  everything  back.  So  please 
don't  give  me  good  advice;  instead,  go  and 
talk  to  Riise.  Explain  to  him  that  it  is 
urgent,  and  I  must  have  the  money.  I  am 
quite  indifferent  as  to  what  becomes  of  the 
capital.  I  don't  mind  paying  dearly  for  this 
spree — or  whatever  you  like  to  call  it — and 
being  poor  afterwards  in  consequence.  If  the 
matter  goes  awry,  you'll  hear  nothing  more  of 
Elsie  Lindtner.  I  shall  neither  take  poison 
nor  shoot  myself.  There  is  a  more  comfort- 
able way  out  of  it.  A  Brazilian,  whom  I 
don't  like,  has  lent  me  a  big  sum  of  money. 
If  I  borrow  any  more  of  him,  it'll  have  to 
come  to  a  bargain.  Make  Riise  sell  the  stock, 
even   at  a  heavy  loss,   I   must  have  money. 

22 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

Meanwhile  send  me  all  you  can  spare  at  the 
moment  by  cheque.     I  hope  you  continue  to 
be  as  happy  as  ever. 
With  many  thanks  in  advance, 

Yours, 
Elsie. 


n 


Monte  Carlo. 

DEAR  Richard, 
A  friend  in  need  is  a  friend  indeed. 
Accept  my  thanks  for  your  prompt 
and  ready  help.  All  the  same,  I  could  not 
wait  till  it  came,  and  borrowed  again  from  the 
Brazilian.  His  obnoxious  money  has  brought 
me  luck.  If  it  had  been  the  other  way  about 
— well,  never  mind.  It  was  a  mad,  desperate 
plunge  on  my  part.  Now  that  it  is  over  I 
cannot  understand  how  I  could  nerve  myself 
for  it.  But  I  have  won.  The  night  before 
last  I  raked  in  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
francs  besides  all  that  I  had  lost.  After  that 
I  laid  down  to  sleep.  Your  money  has  just 
arrived.  I  shall  send  it  back  at  once  with 
what  you  sent  me  before,  and  the  amount*  I 
have  wrung  out  of  Riise.  Jeanne  has  started 
packing. 

24 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

To-morrow  we  leave  here.  We  are  going 
for  Jeanne's  sake.  She  has  taken  my  gam- 
bling too  much  to  heart. 

Now,  if  you  possibly  can,  forget  this  little 
episode.  I  wasn't  completely  myself.  It's  all 
over,  and  too  late  to  repent.  We  intend  to 
spend  the  rest  of  the  winter  in  Tangiers  and 
Cairo,  and  probably  in  Helvan.  Jeanne 
wants  to  go  to  India,  and  I  have  no  objection 
so  long  as  the  journey  is  not  too  difficult.  At 
all  events,  we  shall  spend  a  few  weeks  in  Paris, 
just  to  fit  ourselves  out  stylishly. 

It  is  positively  disgraceful  of  me  that  I 
have  forgotten  to  congratulate  you  on  the 
birth  of  your  son  and  heir.  How  I  should 
like  to  see  your  paternal  countenance — you 
might  send  me  a  photograph  of  yourself  with 
the  Crown  Prince,  and  now,  farewell,  till  cir- 
cumstances throw  us  together  again. 

Elsie. 


* 
*      * 

25 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

How  long  can  things  go  on  like  this?  We 
wander  hither  and  thither,  and  have  no  abid- 
ing place,  as  if  we  were  fugitives  condemned 
to  be  eternally  on  the  move.  And  we  feign 
enjoyment  of  this  perpetual  unsettlement. 
Jeanne  has  long  ago  seen  through  the  pitiable 
farce,  but  she  continues  to  play  her  part  loy- 
ally out  of  gratitude  for  the  small  kindness  I 
have  shown  her.  We  get  on  quite  well  to- 
gether. Jeanne  reads  in  my  face  when  it  is 
best  to  speak,  and  when  to  be  silent. 

She  is  happiest  on  shore  with  terra  firma 
beneath  her  feet,  while  I  like  best  the  gliding 
days  and  nights  on  board  ship ;  the  sky  above, 
the  sea  beneath  me,  my  brain  vacant,  and  all 
my  senses  lulled  to  sleep.  It  reminds  me  of 
the  early  days  on  my  solitary  island,  when 
every  trifling  incident  was  an  affair  of  huge 
importance.  The  flight  of  a  seagull,  the  top 
of  a  mast  above  the  horizon — a  ship  sailing 
by  in  the  night.  We  spend  the  day  on  our 
deck  chairs,  half  dozing  over  a  book,  or  con- 

26 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

versing  in  a  company  voice;  but  at  night  we 
throw  ulsters  over  our  nightgowns  and  pace 
the  deck,  our  natures  expanding  like  flowers 
which  only  shed  their  perfume  after  dark. 

I  have  become  very  fond  of  Jeanne.  Her 
poor,  withered  heart,  too  early  developed,  too 
soon  faded,  awakes  a  certain  gentle  compas- 
sion within  me.  All  my  opinions  are  ac- 
cepted by  her  eagerly  as  golden  rules  for  the 
ordering  of  life.  If  only  I  could  forget!  ex- 
istence might  be  bearable.  But  I  cannot  for- 
get. The  glance  which  showed  me  the  corpse 
of  his  love  follows  me  continually  everywhere. 
The  humiliation  in  that  glance!  I  don't  love 
him,  and  I  don't  hate  him.  I  am  getting  too 
lukewarm  to  hate.  But  contempt  rankles — 
Jeanne  is  careful  to  say  nothing  that  can  hurt 
me,  and  yet  sometimes  she  hurts  me  by  being 
too  tactfully  silent!  I  don't  want  to  be  pitied, 
so  we  while  away  hours  over  our  toilette. 

How  long  can  it  go  on? 


27 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

Athens. 

Here  it  is  as  nice  as  anywhere  else.  I 
struggle  bravely  to  let  myself  be  enchanted 
with  Greece's  past,  but  in  reality  I  care  as 
little  about  it  as  I  care  for  the  potshares  on  the 
Keramaikos. 

We  are  attending  Professor  Dorpfeld's 
lectures  on  "  The  Acropolis,"  and  I  am 
more  interested  in  the  way  the  man  says 
things  than  in  concentrating  my  mind  on 
what  he  says.  He  has  made  himself  so  thor- 
oughly familiar  with  the  plastic  beauty  of  the 
world,  that  finally  the  invisible  words  that  fall 
from  his  lips  seem  to  have  become  plastic, 
too.  I  take  no  interest  in  why  the  pillars  are 
thickest  in  the  middle.  It  is  the  olive  groves, 
and  the  lights  and  shadows  flitting  over 
Athens,  that  charm  and  engross  me. 

Jeanne  takes  it  all  in  like  a  gaping-mouthed 
schoolgirl;  she  studies  the  history  of  art  in  the 
hotel.     I  have  given  her  leave  to  go  on  an 

28 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

excavating  expedition,  but  without  me.  I 
strongly  object  to  riding  through  snow  up  to 
my  waist,  sleeping  in  tents  on  the  bare  ground, 
and  living  on  mutton  and  canned  goods.  My 
laziness  is  growing. 

Luxor. 
I  am  uneasy  about  Jeanne.  She  is  strung 
up  to  a  state  of  enthusiasm  which  alienates 
me.  Is  it  travelling  that  has  developed  her, 
or  are  her  hitherto  dormant  abilities  awaken- 
ing? We  are  simply  travelling  to  kill  time, 
but  she  takes  everything  with  the  same  tre- 
mendous seriousness  as  that  day  in  Berlin 
when  she  first  heard  Beethoven's  Ninth  Sym- 
phony. She  regards  me  as  if  it  were  long 
ago  an  accepted  fact  that  we  each  exist  for 
ourselves,  alone  in  our  separate  worlds.  She 
skips  half  the  meals  to  roam  about  among  the 
temples.  To-night  we  sat  on  top  of  the  great 
pylon  and  watched  the  sun  go  down.  For 
me   it  was   just  like   a   beautiful   decorative 

29 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

effect  at  the  theatre.  I  couldn't  help  thinking 
of  "Aida."  She  wouldn't  come  in  when  I 
did,  and  when  I  suggested  that  the  night  air 
was  chilly  she  answered  quite  snappishly,  "I 
wish  to  see  the  moon  illumine  the  classic  sea." 
Of  course,  I  left  her  alone,  but  I  couldn't 
sleep,  and  at  about  midnight  I  heard  her  come 
back.  My  door  was  open,  and  I  called  her 
in.  She  sat  down  on  the  end  of  my  bed  and 
was  crying.  What  can  be  the  matter  with 
her? 

I  am  not  going  to  torment  her  with  ques- 
tions. She  shall  be  free  to  come  and  go  as 
she  chooses — so  long  as  she  spares  me  the 
paeans  of  an  enthusiasm  which  I  cannot  share. 
It  is  all  very  well  here  but  I  prefer  myself  in 
the  Paris  boulevards,  Unter  den  Linden,  and 
Bond  Street.  I  feel  so  poverty-stricken  when 
I  see  others  full  of  emotional  elan. 

Yes,  that  is  it.  That  is  why  I  am  nervous 
about  Jeanne's  enthusiasm  for  art.  She  re- 
minds me  of  old  days  when  Malthe,  in  my 

30 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

yellow  room  looking  over  the  market-place, 
told  me  of  his  travels,  and  I  deluded  myself 
into  imagining  I  understood  what  he  was 
talking  about.  .  .  . 

And  so  this  phase  has  come  to  an  end,  tool 
I  had  quite  thought  that  Jeanne  had  sold  her- 
self to  me  for  life.  But  it  was  not  to  be,  after 
all.  I  might  have  prevented  it.  Perhaps 
she  was  waiting  for  a  word  from  me.  Still, 
it  is  best  that  we  should  part.  Let  her  put 
her  abilities  to  the  test,  by  all  means.  She 
will  soon  have  had  enough  of  work,  and  I 
am  in  a  position  of  being  able  to  wait.  Now 
I  shall  go  to  America,  and  if  I  find  that  bores 
me,  too,  God  only  knows  if  I  shan't  give  in 
and  accept  the  Brazilian.  His  method  of 
courtship,  at  least,  is  as  systematic  as  a  per- 
secution. And  at  bottom  I  am  flattered,  that 
still — still;  but  for  how  much  longer?  I  am 
deemed  desirable.  I  ask  myself  in  moments 
of  doubt  whether  I  should  be  even  that,  with- 
out the  aid  of  Poiret  and  Worth. 

31 


DEAR  Jeanne, — Little  travelling  com- 
panion. 
So  our  paths  separate — tempora- 
rily, or  for  ever — neither  of  us  can  say  which. 
But  I  feel  that  it  is  best  to  part,  and  I  am  not 
at  all  sad  or  hurt.  Two  years  is  a  good  long 
time  for  two  people  to  have  lived  together, 
and  we  have  both  derived  some  profit  from 
those  years.  For  me  the  profit  lies  also  in 
their  coming  to  an  end,  for  you  that  you  have 
found  life  worth  living.  As  I  said  before,  I 
strongly  advise  you  to  go  through  the  whole 
training,  which  will  prove  whether  you  have 
creative  talent,  or  your  art  is  merely  suited  to 
commercial  purposes.  I  shouldn't  be  sur- 
prised, indeed,  if  you  became  a  designer  of 
buildings — architect  is,  I  suppose,  too  ambi- 
tious a  word  to  apply  to  a  woman — and  as 
Greek  and  Egyptian  temples  are  likely  to  be 

32 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

your  speciality,  you  are  hardly  destined  to  be 
popular. 

Now  we  have  discussed  all  the  practical 
points.  I  think  you  know  that  I  wish  you 
absolutely  to  enjoy  your  time  in  Paris.  Enjoy 
it  to  the  full,  but  don't  commit  any  irrevocable 
follies  I 

You  will  get  these  lines  from  London, 
where  I  am  amusing  myself  by  a  short  obesity 
cure.  Imagine  us  fencing,  like  small  chil- 
dren in  black  satin  knickerbockers  and  white 
sweaters!  Several  ladies  from  Court  .take 
part  in  the  "class."  Afterwards  we  have  a 
brisk  but  delightful  hip-massage,  and  that 
alone  makes  it  worth  the  trouble.  Directly  I 
am  satisfied  with  the  slimness  of  my  exterior, 
I  start  for  New  York.  You  were  never  very 
happy  over  there,  but  for  me  that  city  has  a 
peculiar  fascination.  I  don't  know  myself 
what  it  consists  in. 

I  beg  you,  from  my  heart,  Jeanne,  that  you 
will  always  consider  me  as  a  friend  to  whom 
3  33 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

you  can  comfortably  tell  everything,  and  come 
to  for  sympathy  and  advice,  whether  in  sor- 
row or  happiness.  You  will,  Jeanne,  won't 
you?  and  don't  neglect  your  appearance. 
Work  may  absorb  you  for  a  time,  but  that 
kind  of  thing  is  a  transitory  craze  in  a  woman 
of  your  disposition.  Your  heritage  is  your 
appearance,  remember. 

Good-bye  for  the  present,  and  "good  luck," 
little  travelling  companion. 

Elsie  Lindtner. 


34 


DEAREST  Jeanne, 
Your  last  letter — to  put  it  mildly 
— is  very  exaggerated.  Frankly,  it 
is  positively  hysterical.  Why  should  you 
harp  to  me  on  your  "guilt,"  or  your  everlast- 
ing gratitude,  on  your  privilege  of  making 
some  sacrifice  for  me.  I  don't  understand  a 
word  of  the  whole  rigmarole,  not  a  single 
word.  I  don't  see  the  point  of  it  in  the  least. 
Here  I  am  perfectly  content  in  my  own  soli- 
tary way,  which  is  not  a  bit  misanthropic,  and 
my  own  desire  is  that  you  should  feel  content, 
too.  Don't  you  like  Paris?  You  really 
needn't  be  afraid  to  say  so — or  is  it  the  work 
that  you  are  sick  of?  If  so,  it  is  only  what 
I  have  long  expected. 

According  to  my  opinion,  you  belong  to 
those  human  luxuries  whose  presence  in  the 
world  are  quite  superfluous,  but  who  have  a 

35 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

certain  genius  through  their  mere  existence 
alone  of  making  life  more  tolerable  for  others. 
Your  place  is  either  this,  or  in  the  midst  of 
a  grande  passion  (heaven  forbid)  in  which 
you  would  screw  yourself  into  a  bread  pellet, 
to  be  held  in  some  one  else's  mouth.  I  can 
see  you  like  The  Princess  on  the  Pea,  scorning 
everything,  or  I  can  see  you  on  your  knees 
scouring  steps  for  the  man  you  love. 

But  I  should  like  to  see  the  man  you  were 
able  to  love. 

Perhaps  you  are  in  love?  That  idea  has 
suddenly  occurred  to  me,  though  it  seems 
highly  improbable.  Now,  however,  that  I 
have  read  through  your  last  nonsensical  letter 
again,  I  believe  that  I  have  really  hit  on  the 
right  solution. 

You  are  in  love,  and  out  of  feelings  of  mis- 
taken gratitude,  you  do  not  like  to  tell  mc. 
Jeanne,  Jeanne!  Will  you  for  my  sake  be 
an  old  maid?  It  is  very  sweet  of  you,  but  a 
little  too  much  to  expect.     Besides,  it  is  quite 

36 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

unnecessary.  1  am  not  going  to  lie,  and  pre- 
tend that  it  will  not  cost  me  something  to  give 
up  my  little  fairy-tale  princess  with  the  beau- 
tiful hands.  Not  only  my  hair,  but  my 
shamefully  overcultivated  taste  is  missing 
you,  with  whom  I  was  able  to  exchange  ideas. 
An  empty  place  on  my  balcony  that  will  never 
be  filled  again  till  the  aforesaid  maiden  sits 
in  it  with  the  sunlight  shining  on  her  and  on 
the  river,  and  on  the  town  which  is  the  town 
of  all  others. 

But,  Jeanne,  our  paths  have  diverged,  and 
they  can  never  again  unite.  You  are  not  in 
the  least  fit  to  be  in  my  company.  You  don't 
want  me,  but  life,  and  joyousness.  May  you 
find  it,  no  matter  whether,  like  me,  you  sell 
yourself,  and  are  shut  up  in  a  golden  cage, 
whether  you  live  your  own  fairy-tale,  and 
realise  the  mirage  of  your  dreams,  or  whether 
you  develop  into  an  artist.  Only  with  me 
you  would  have  no  peace. 

I  noticed  how  you  beat  your  wings  when 
37 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

we  were  together,  how  you  pined  *and  tor- 
tured yourself  to  adopt  the  pose  that  pleased 
me.     How  for  my  sake  you  acted  a  part. 

Instead  of  writing  sheets,  I  send  you  these 
lines,  and  entreat  you  to  answer  by  telegram 
so  that  you  may  tell  me  in  the  fewest  possible 
words  what  has  happened  to  you. 

I  am,  God  knows,  so  curious  that  I  should 
like  to  send  you  a  wire  a  yard  long.  But  I 
must  rule  my  spirit  so  as  to  take  this  modern 
city  of  New  York. 

Your 

Elsie. 


38 


JEANNE,  Jeanne,  JeanneI 
Only   that!    Thank   God,    only   that. 
How   infinitely   comforting   a   telegram 
with  its  few  concise  words  can  be. 

Don't  let  this  matter  worry  you  further. 
Of  course,  I'll  take  the  child  to  my  heart;  or 
still  better,  I  will  adopt  the  child. 

After  all,  it's  much  the  same  to  me  whether 
I  have  a  camera,  cacti,  or  a  little  child  for  a 
hobby.  You  needn't  be  afraid  that  I  shall 
plant  it  in  a  flower-pot  like  a  cutting,  or  pin 
it  into  my  lace  collection.  It  shall,  I  promise 
you,  be  properly  cared  for,  not  by  me,  but 
through  me.  I  will  engage  the  best  nurse 
money  can  procure.  If  you  like,  too,  I  will 
sail  with  the  nurse  over  the  whole  width  of 
the  Atlantic  to  receive  the  little  eel  in  person. 
The  more  I  think  it  over,  the  more  excellent 
the   plan   seems   to   me.     You  will   have  no 

39 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

bother,  will  not  be  interrupted  in  your  career, 
and  I  shall  add  to  the  long  list  of  my  crazes 
one  more  item.  To  prevent  there  being  any 
sort  of  misunderstanding  about  it,  I  am  per- 
fectly confident  that  providing  for  the  little 
legacy  will  be  a  source  of  new  enjoyment  to 
me. 

I  only  make  one  condition,  and  that  is, 
if  the  affair  becomes  too  complete  I  may 
be  allowed  to  put  "our  child"  out  to 
nurse. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  father  has  not  won 
a  fraction  of  your  heart.  I  can  well  imagine 
that  he  is  some  young  artist  whom  you  have 
met  at  the  class.  He  gazed  at  your  hair  till 
he  was  sick,  which  is  not  at  all  to  be  wondered 
at,  and  you  forgot  momentarily  that  you  had 
long  ago  abjured  all  folly. 

Write  me  more  details  as  to  whether  you 
approve;  when  "it"  is  expected,  and  so  on. 
I  needn't  advise  you,  of  course,  to  leave  Paris 
before  the  change  in  your  exterior  attracts 

40 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

notice.     I  am  thinking  a  great  deal  of  you, 
Jeanne,  little  Jeanne. 

Your 

Elsie. 


41 


DEAR  Magna  Wellmann, 
And  I  am  the  woman  who  thought 
you  had   forgotten  me,  or  that  you 
still  bore  me  a  grudge  for  that  letter  which 
I   wrote  you   four — no,   it  is  already  five — 
years  ago. 

Now  I  sit  here  and  ponder  whether  the 
greatest  transformation  has  been  worked  in 
you,  or  in  me.  You,  at  all  events,  are  not  the 
same,  and  I  believe  that  I  am  not.  But  at 
our  age,  one  is  long  past  growing  and  de- 
veloping. 

You  who  of  old  were  like  a  dry  autumn 
leaf  whirled  before  the  wind,  have  proved 
yourself  all  at  once  to  have  a  strength  and 
courage  which  make  me  ashamed.  Who  has 
lulled  your  senses  so  to  rest?  The  one 
"great"  love?  No,  I  will  not  ask  questions, 
though  a  whole  host  of  them  pulsate  within 

42 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

me.  And  you  are  not  a  bit  afraid?  You 
speak  of  it  as  if  it  were  a  mere  frolic.  You 
wonderful  human  creature,  Magna.  Other 
women  suflfer  intolerably  during  the  nine 
months  of  pregnancy,  and  grow  irritable  and 
ugly.  But  you  are  blooming  as  if  it  were  the 
most  perfectly  natural  condition  to  be  in. 
What  a  contrast  to  your  ordinary  mood  and 
your  old  escapades.  You  are  not  in  the  least 
afraid  to  bring  a  child  into  the  world  at  your 
age;  and  in  such  circumstances  every  line  of 
your  letter  breathes  freshness  and  health,  and 
there  is  no  disguising  it. 

Do  you  know,  your  letter  awoke  in  me  the 
first  longing  for  Denmark  since  I  packed  my 
boxes  and  went  out  into  the  wide  world. 

I  have  become  an  alien.  Five  years  is  not 
such  a  very  long  time,  though  long  enough  to 
render  a  person  countryless.  Richard  in  his 
pleasant  way,  keeps  me  au  courant  with  what 
he  calls  the  "main  movements"  of  our  circle, 
so  I   know  that  you  have  been  banned  and 

43 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

ostracised.  I  cannot  say  that  I  think  it  is  al- 
together undeserved.  You  know  that  I  insist 
on  good  form  outwardly  as  well  as  inwardly, 
and,  really.  Magna,  I  cannot  picture  myself 
behaving  as  you  have  done,  any  more  than 
I  can  picture  myself  going  out  in  society  in 
a  nightdress  with  my  hair  hanging  down  in  a 
pigtail.     But,  of  course,  it  is  your  afifair. 

For  the  most  part  I  take  no  interest  in  what 
goes  on  at  home.  It  reminds  me  too  much 
of  looking  at  a  drop  of  water  through  a  micro- 
scope. If,  by  any  chance,  I  come  across  a 
Danish  newspaper,  I  read  nothing  but  the 
obituaries,  and  even  they  do  not  rouse  a 
shadow  of  emotion  in  my  soul. 

Yet  there  are  fates  which,  out  of  curiosity 
or  fellow-feeling,  appeal  to  me.  And  yours  is 
one  of  them.  When  Richard  wrote,  "Frau 
Wellmann's  latest  makes  her  'impossible'  in 
this  part  of  the  world,"  I  could  not  help 
smiling.  You  made  yourself  impossible  years 
ago.     It  is  true.  Professor  Wellmann's  name 

44 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

and  social  status  have  sheltered  and  held  a 
restraining  hand  over  you,  that  is  to  say,  up 
till  now. 

But  now  it  has  come  to  an  actual  scandal. 
You  parade  your  shame  on  the  housetops  of 
Copenhagen,  instead  of  going  away  and  hush- 
ing it  up. 

By  the  bye,  how  many  small  affairs  were 
there  not  year  after  year  hushed  up  in  our 
set?  The  dear  ladies  even  were  not  afraid 
to  whisper  about  them  to  each  other.  And 
you,  you  even,  delight  in  having  a  child  of 
the  peculiar  kind  that  we  call  illegitimate. 
Magna,  Magna!  I  am  not  going  to  suppose 
that  behind  it  all  is  a  spark  of  malicious  joy 
in  challenging  the  creme  de  la  creme.  That 
would  be  a  poor  joke.  Neither  can  I  be- 
lieve that  your  motive  has  anything  to  do 
with  love  for  the  father  of  your  illegitimate 
child. 

You  write  so  beautifully  about  the  feeling 
that  life  is  growing  within  you.     In  this  re- 

45 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

spect,  I  am  a  stranger,  and  absolutely  blind. 
I  have  never  felt  the  smallest  sensation  of 
longing  to  feel  that  life  is  growing  within 
me.  Perhaps  I  am  even  incapable  of  under- 
standing your  expression.     Yet  it  touches  me. 

You  were  entering  on  a  period  of  severe 
trial  for  yourself  and  for  the  children,  and 
the  time  of  trial  will  not  end  with  your  con- 
finement. There  will  most  certainly  have  to 
be  an  explanation,  and  preferably  an  expla- 
nation that  will  bring  as  little  injury  as  pos- 
sible to  the  children.  Have  you  thought  of 
this?  Don't  put  off  the  inevitable  too  long, 
or  others  may  be  before  you.  The  children 
cannot — it  would  be  terrible  if  they  could — 
understand  the  whole,  so  the  question  is  how 
to  invent  a  fable  which  will  best  lull  their 
reflection. 

Many  will  judge  you  because  you  have 
done  what  is  not  customary  and  defied  the 
usages  of  society;  others  will  judge  you  out 
of  envy,  because  they  have  not  had  the  courage 

46 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

to  4o  it  themselves.  Every  one  who  has  re- 
frained through  fear  of  disgrace  and  shame, 
will  hurl  a  stone  at  you.  Likewise  the  child- 
less women.  If  I  were  still  in  the  Old  Mar- 
ket Place,  I  should  flout  you,  too.  Still,  there 
are  a  whole  lot  of  free-thinking  human 
creatures  who  will  judge  you  not  on  account 
of  the  child,  but  for  the  children's  sake.  You 
may  shrug  your  shoulders  at  the  others,  but 
you  can't  get  away  from  the  shadow  which 
you  are  casting  on  the  children. 

Well,  now  that  I  have  discoursed  to  you  in 
this  extremely  reasonable  manner,  I  may  with 
a  clear  conscience  extend  my  hands  across  the 
ocean  and  say,  "Good  luck.  Magna." 

When  the  atmosphere  becomes  too  hot  to 
hold  you,  then  take  refuge  with  me.  I  live 
here,  fourteen  storeys  high,  on  Riverside 
Drive.  My  name  is  on  the  door  in  char- 
acters as  small  as  those  on  a  postage  stamp. 
It  is  the  fashion  here,  and  the  letters  are  de- 
livered  to   the   porter.     The   house   is   mag- 

47 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

nificently  arranged,  and  is  as  light  as  a  studio. 
I  steadily  believe  that  I  shall  rest  my  bones 
in  some  peaceful  burial  ground  here.  And 
as  it's  the  custom  to  adorn  and  paint  the  dead 
till  they  look  twenty  or  thirty  years  younger 
than  when  they  were  alive,  you  will  compre- 
hend how  that  appeals  to  the  vanity  of  one 
who  has  warded  off  the  burden  of  age.  I 
should  just  like  to  know  how  any  woman 
devoid  of  vanity  could  exist  in  this  city  of 
light  and  sunshine.  I  belong  to  two  or  three 
clubs  where  ladies  of  seventy  and  eighty 
congregate,  with  porcelain  complexions, 
powdered  coiffures,  and  Gainsborough  hats. 
Don't  imagine  for  a  moment  that  they 
are  ludicrous.  They  possess  a  dignity  and  joy 
in  existence  which  makes  me  think  that 
they  must  pass  their  nights  in  a  bath  of 
youth. 

There  is  a  glamour  of  festivity  hanging 
over  this  place.  Not  in  the  slums;  but  there 
of  course,  you  needn't  go.     New  York's  poor 

48 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

have  a  totally  different  aspect  and  manner  of 
behaviour  from  the  poor  of  European  cities, 
where  they  rub  against  travellers  with  their 
sores  and  crutches.  In  all  these  years  I  have 
only  seen  two  human  beings  who  didn't  belong 
to  Fifth  Avenue.  An  Italian  and  his  wife 
lay  and  sunned  themselves  on  the  curb  and 
ate  dirty  vegetables  out  of  a  rusty  tin.  No 
one  sent  them  off,  but  the  whole  traffic  of  the 
street  gave  them  a  wide  berth,  as  if  they  had 
been  a  pair  of  plague-stricken  patients. 

I  ride  on  horseback  every  day  till  I  am 
dead  tired,  in  a  salmon-coloured  habit  and  a 
slouch  hat  over  my  eyebrows.  My  master — 
a  pitiful  wreck  of  a  once  brilliant  Scottish 
nobleman — at  first  objected  to  my  riding  en 
cavalier.  But  as  I  remained  obstinate,  he 
left  me  to  my  fate  till  one  fine  day  he  was 
seized  with  admiration  for  my  mastery  of  the 
horse,  and  now  we  are  good  friends.  We 
ride  alternately  in  Central  Park,  which  is  in- 
describably   lovely   when    all    the    beds    are 

49 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

aglow  with  rhododendrons  in  bloom,  and  in 
New  Jersey,  which  is  still  unspoilt  Nature. 
Sundays,  as  a  rule,  we  form  quite  a  cavalcade, 
and  then  we  amuse  ourselves  like  children. 
These  people  who  are  outwardly  stiff  and  re- 
served, and  inwardly  do  not  overburden  their 
souls  with  super-culture,  have  a  wholly  re- 
markable and  infectious  capacity  for  sucking 
honey  out  of  the  most  trifling  banalities  of 
existence.  We  chat  about  the  sun,  moon  and 
stars,  about  our  horses,  our  ravenous  appetites, 
and  'the  recently  discovered  Rembrandt,  and 
never  about  our  neighbours.  We  never  back- 
bite. 

At  the  end  of  such  a  day,  when  I  am  rest- 
ing after  my  bath,  I  seem  to  myself  like  a  be- 
ing with  life  all  before  me. 

In  truth,  I  have  found  congenial  calm.  I 
play  bridge  through  the  long  winter  morn- 
ings at  the  Astor  Hotel  Club,  or  go  to  lectures 
on  psychology,  followed  by  luxurious  lunch- 
eons   during   which    Madame    Homer    and 

50 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

Signor  Caruso  sing  to  us,  not  in  the  intervals, 
but  while  we  eat! 

The  waiters  go  round  pouring  out  coffee 
the  whole  time,  while  we  sit  in  a  rosy  twi- 
light. Every  one  pays  every  one  else  little 
choice  and  sincerely-meant  compliments. 
Call  it  an  empty  life,  if  you  like,  and  I  won't 
deny  that  it  is. 

You  ask  what  I  have  been  doing  since  I 
took  flight  from  my  now  desolate  and  dilapi- 
dated villa.  If  I  only  knew  myself  I  would 
tell  you.  It  all  seems  so  long  ago  I  travelled 
about  with  Jeanne,  my  young  housemate  and 
friend,  and  we  really  did  nothing  but  kill 
time. 

Rumours  of  my  Monte  Carlo  period  have 
no  doubt  penetrated  to  Denmark.  I  admit 
it  was  an  ugly  experience.  Never  in  all  my 
life  had  I  imagined  that  I  could  become  the 
prey  of  this  passion,  but  I  caught  the  fever 
so  badly  that  I  conducted  myself  as  shame- 
lessly as  the  most  hardened  professional  gam- 

51 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

biers.  I  certainly  believe  that  during  those 
days  I  was  scarcely  responsible.  If  the  tide 
of  fortune  had  not  turned  I  should  have  gam- 
bled away  every  farthing  I  possess.  But 
things  went  so  well  that  I  am  living  to-day  on 
my  winnings,  without  touching  my  dividends. 

Jeanne  is  still  in  Paris,  where  she  has  been 
for  the  last  two  years.  She  intends  to  qualify 
for  some  industrial  art,  for  she  has  an  indis- 
putable and  highly  original  talent.  Lately  I 
have  had  a  very  significant  letter  from  her, 
but  I  may  not  divulge  its  contents.  If  things 
turn  out,  as  at  present  seems  likely,  my  life 
may  undergo  a  complete  re-arrangement. 

I  must  tell  you  about  my  latest  craze.  I 
have  had  quite  a  dozen  little  crazes  in  this  one 
year  alone.  It  is  a  splendid  distraction. 
Well,  my  latest  is  collecting  dwarf  cacti  and 
Japanese  dwarf  trees,  which  you  hardly  ever 
see  in  Denmark.  They  are  only  a  few  inches 
high,  and  incredibly  old.  You  buy  them  in 
fat  boxes,  miniature   imitations  of  Japanese 

52 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

gardens  with  rivers,  bridges,  and  porcelain 
cupolas  and  tea-houses.  They  are  entrancing. 
Fortunately,  a  gardener  tends  them;  other- 
wise they  would  die  of  neglect.  The  care  of 
plants  is  no  more  in  my  line  than  the  care 
of  children,  or  any  other  live  things.  If  I 
had  the  gift  I  should  have  a  choice  little 
aquarium  with  goldfishes  and  electric  light 
and  illuminations. 

Imagine  Richard  a  paterfamilias  and  do- 
mestic tyrant!  Yes,  indeed.  Magna,  every- 
thing is  changed. 

Now,  I  really  have  told  you  all  about  my- 
self. I  don't  believe  there  is  a  single  craving 
of  my  soul  that  I  have  not  disclosed  to  you. 
It's  not  my  fault  that  the  result  of  these  dis- 
closures appears  so  miserably  poor.  How 
old  is  Jarl  now?  Sixteen  or  more?  It  is  a 
good  thing  that  Agnete  is  soon  to  be  married. 
Write  again  soon,  Magna.  I  promise  to  an- 
swer. 

Elsie  Lindtner. 

S3 


DEAR  Jeanne, 
It  may  be  the  consequence  of  your 
condition,  but  really,  I  am  getting 
quite  concerned  about  your  letters.  I 
thought  everything  was  settled  for  good  when 
I  promised  to  relieve  you  of  responsibility  by 
taking  the  child.  And  now  you  begin  posing 
new  riddles. 

What  secret  is  it  that  you  cannot  betray? 
Why  do  you  talk  about  hiding  yourself  in  the 
remotest  desert?  From  whom  should  you 
hide?  For  what  reason?  Why  do  you  speak 
of  desecration,  and  say  you  wish  you  could  die 
before  the  child  is  born?  You  hate  to  do  it 
a  wrong?    What  wrong? 

Is  this  man  married?  If  so,  his  wife 
needn't  know  that  you  are  going  to  give  birth 
to  a  child.  You  don't  want  to  marry  him;  or 
do  you? 

54 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

If  I  may  advise  you,  Jeanne,  I  should  sug- 
gest your  leaving  the  future  to  take  care  of 
itself,  till  you  are  established  in  peace  and 
quietness  in  some  pretty  neighbourhood. 
What  do  you  say  to  Provence?  At  the  mo- 
ment you  are  nothing  but  a  bundle  of  nerves, 
and  I  have  half  a  mind  to  come  across  and  do 
what  I  can  to  help  you.  But  I  am  too  lazy. 
To  do  anything  to  help  people  when  it  in- 
volves trouble,  is  not  my  metier;  for  you, 
even,  I  cannot  take  trouble,  though  I  love  you. 

But  if  there  is  anything  on  your  mind, 
please  let  me  know  what  it  is,  for,  as  I  said 
before,  I  am  unable  to  make  sense  out  of  the 
nonsense  you  have  written.  Write  as  often 
and  at  as  great  length  as  you  like,  and  the  day 
will  come,  I  hope,  when  I  shall  at  last  grasp 
your  meaning.  Is  it  a  human  being  that  is 
lacking,  one  with  whom  you  can  really  talk? 
I  am  experiencing  every  day  a  crowd  of  little 
stupid  things,  that  keep  me  going  in  a  most 
agreeable  fashion.     But  I  am  chiefly  taken  up 

55 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

with  cherishing  and  cultivating  my  own 
precious  appearance.  Altogether,  I  was 
much  more  alive  when  we  two  sat  together  in 
our  White  Villa  on  the  Island,  and  saw  the 
leaves  falling  from  the  trees. 

Your 
Elsie. 

* 

Jeanne  .  .  .  Malthe  .  .  .  Jeanne  .  .  .  Malthe. 

Jeanne  and  he  ...  he  and  Jeanne.  .  .  . 

I  must  try  to  understand  it.  Those 
two  .  .  . 

And,  it  was  the  child  of  these  two,  their 
child,  I  wanted  to  adopt  .  .  . 

*       * 

Two  days  have  passed,  but  I  am  no  nearer 
understanding.  I  go  round  and  round  in  an 
empty  circle,  and  say  to  myself,  "Jeanne  and 
Malthe — Malthe  and  Jeanne."  And  I  ex- 
pect to  be  overcome  by  a  heart-rending  agony. 

56 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

But  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  neither  my  heart  nor 
my  mind  are  affected.  My  nerves,  too,  are 
perfectly  composed.  I  am,  in  fact,  only  pet- 
rified with  astonishment. 


Why  don't  I  suffer?  What  has  become  of 
the  love  I  once  felt.  Where  is  it? — or — I  un- 
derstand those  two  so  exactly.  It's  myself 
that  I  don't  understand.  I  can  give  them  my 
blessing  with  the  easiest  and  most  serene  con- 
science in  the  world.  I  can  even  rejoice  that 
these  two,  just  these  two,  have  found  each 
other  so  futile;  then  am  I  so  inexplicably, 
egregiously  futile? 


I  have  begun  to  take  delight  in  travelling 
by  the  Subway.  People  there  don't  pose. 
They  are  in  too  great  a  hurry  to  put  on  masks. 
Extraordinary  how  impressive  breeding  is 
when   it  is   united  with   good  clothes.     The 

57 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

train  can  be  so  full  that  there  is  often  a  double 
row  extending  from  one  end  of  the  car  to  the 
other,  hanging  on  to  the  round  leather  rings 
with  coarse,  toil-worn,  or  delicate  kid-gloved 
hands.  Some  one  always  makes  room  for  me, 
but  I  also  take  my  time  to  form  the  desired 
expression  on  my  face.  To-day  a  poor 
woman  sat  next  to  me  with  two  or  three  little 
wreaths  on  her  lap.  She  wore  a  dusty  mourn- 
ing veil  thrown  over  her  hair. 

She  cried  the  whole  way;  the  veil  was  so 
shabby  that  I  calculated  the  child  must  have 
died  a  long  time  ago.  Her  grief  was  still 
fresh.  Mine  has  never  existed.  I  had 
thought  my  life  at  least  contained  what  is 
called  a  great  sorrow.  But  I  have  only 
draped  an  empty  space  with  the  trappings  of 
sorrow  .  .  . 

I  must  write  to  Jeanne. 

* 
.*      * 


58 


DEAR  Little  Travelling  Companion, 
This  letter  might  be  written  in 
twenty  different  ways,  but  only  one  is 
the  right  way,  and  now  I  begin  writing  to  you 
in  the  same  style  as  I  write  in  my  own  poor, 
dull  diary.  You  know  it  is  only  lazy  people 
who  can  bear  to  record  the  barrenness  of  their 
daily  life  in  a  diary. 

Accept  my  warmest  and  most  sincere  con- 
gratulations, dear  Jeanne,  and  don't  shed  any 
more  tears  on  my  account.  You  have  not 
transgressed  anything,  you  dear  child,  with 
your  refined  humanity.  Neither  has  he. 
Yet  you  fancy  that  your  letters — your  "confes- 
sion," has  caused  me  pain.  Oh,  no!  Alas! 
it  has  done  nothing  of  the  kind.  I  say,  alas! 
because  I  should  so  like  to  believe  myself, 
that  I  had  once  in  my  life  loved  with  my 
whole  heart.     Now  I  see  it  must  have  been 

59 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

all  imagination.  It  can't  be  explained  other- 
wise— a  delusion,  a  myth — anything  you  like. 
Perhaps  a  charming  dream. 

Well,  the  dream  is  over;  that  is  the  only 
thing  I  am  certain  about.  All  that  remains 
of  it  is  the  memory  of  a  good  friend  who, 
by  a  truly  magical  freak  of  fate,  has  found 
the  one  woman,  in  my  opinion,  suited  to 
him. 

Jeanne,  I  am  not  disguising  the  facts.  This 
is  the  first  and  the  last  time,  too,  for  that  mat- 
ter— that  the  subject  of  Malthe  and  myself  is 
mentioned  between  us. 

The  whole  time  you  and  I  were  knocking 
about  the  world  like  homeless  vagrants,  you 
never  referred  to  it,  or  let  drop  a  hint,  that 
you  knew  the  whole  humiliating  connection. 
Though  /  knew  that  you  knew,  and  that  raised 
you  in  my  esteem  as  a  human  creature  to  an 
extraordinary  degree.  I  think  so  highly  of 
Malthe  that  you  alone  seem  to  me  good 
enough  for  him.     So  you  see  what  you  write 

60 


•      ELSIE  LINDTNER 

about  committing  a  ''robbery"  has  no  point. 
And  more  than  that,  I  can  tell  you  I  am  one 
of  those  women  ill  adapted  to  live  with,  much 
less  to  love,  another  human  being.  I  am 
quite  clear  now  about  this.  You,  on  the  con- 
trary, in  compensation  for  your  joyless  youth, 
are  endowed  with  the  capacity  for  self-sacri- 
fice and  yielding.  For  you  it  will  be  a  posi- 
tive delight  to  abandon  your  ego,  and  let  it  be 
absorbed  by  his.  For  me  such  a  thing  is  in- 
conceivable. 

There  is  no  necessity  to  recur  any  more  to 
the  past — at  least  as  far  as  I  am  concerned. 
On  your  behalf  we  unfortunately  have  to  do 
it.  Much  more  than  the  news  itself,  does 
your  question,  shall  you  speak  or  be  silent, 
perplex  my  brain  and  excite  my  emotions. 

If  my  position  was  now  what  it  once  was, 
and  my  views  of  life  what  they  once  were,  I 
should  answer  decidedly:  Keep  your  lips 
closed,  and  the  secret  that  concerns  only  you, 
locked    in   your   heart!     But   now   there   are 

6i 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

other  factors  to  consider.  I  am  changed. 
Time  and  life — I  scarcely  know  what — have 
changed  me — and  you  are  not  like  the  major- 
ity of  women,  and  Malthe  is  not  a  man  like 
other  men. 

You  may  perhaps  cause  him  a  never-ending 
torment  by  speaking.  Be  clear  on  this,  or  you 
may  cause  yourself  no  less  pain  by  keeping 
silent,  and  letting  what  is  past  and  over  for 
ever  be  forgotten.  I  know  you,  Jeanne; 
every  day  and  every  hour  you  will  despise 
yourself  more  and  more  because  his  belief  in 
you  is  so  boundless. 

You  can't  be  silent.  You  will  be  com- 
pelled to  lie.  What  to  ninety-nine  people 
out  of  a  hundred  would  be  simple  and  natural 
enough  will  undermine  not  only  your  self-re- 
spect, but  your  joy  in  life.  On  the  other 
hand,  you  have  never  loved.  The  thing  you 
call  your  past,  has  really  had  no  significance 
for  you.  Why  should  it  be  unearthed  now, 
and   dragged  into  the  glare  of  day?     Why 

62 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

should  something  that  meant  nothing  but 
words  to  you,  be  made  crucial?  Are  you  two, 
you  and  he,  to  spend  the  most  beautiful 
years  of  your  love  in  exhuming  corpses  and 
taking  them  about  with  you  wherever  you 
go? 

Joergen  Malthe  is  not  as  other  men  are. 
He  will  never  reproach  you,  but  he  will 
grieve,  and  you  will  grieve  with  him. 

You  see,  I  am  unable  to  advise  you.  Per- 
haps I  have  no  right  to  take  the  responsibility 
upon  me.  I  have  often  talked  by  the  hour  to 
your  future  husband.  But  as  far  as  I  can  re- 
member, we  never  touched  on  the  topic  of 
woman  in  the  abstract.  Thus  It  comes  about 
that  I  am  ignorant  of  what  Malthe's  views 
are. 

And  yet — Malthe  is  the  father  of  your 
child.     The  father  of  your  unborn  child. 

Speak,  Jeanne,  speak  openly  and  without 
fear.  It  will  be  setting  up  no  defence  for  hav- 
ing yielded  to  his  inclinations,  but  he  will  find 

^3 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

in  it  a  means  of  explaining  and  defending 
what  happened  before  his  time;  for  Joergen 
Malthe  is  not  like  other  men. 

If  he  has  thought  it  right  and  natural  that 
the  woman  he  loves  should  become  his  in  the 
way  you  have  become  his,  he  will  think  it 
right  and  natural  that  you  should  have  exer- 
cised the  sovereignty  over  your  person  before 
you  knew  him.  All  you  have  got  to  tell  him 
afterwards  is  that  you  love  him  and  that  you 
have  never  loved  any  one  but  him. 

I  seem  to  myself  at  this  moment  so  very 
ancient.  Such  an  eternity  lies  between  then 
and  now,  but  that  is  as  it  should  be. 

Little  travelling  companion  with  the  red 
hair,  let  me  see  you  helping  him  now  in  the 
prime  of  his  manhood  to  build  up  his  reputa- 
tion, so  that  his  name  will  become  immortal. 
You  understand  how  to  see — how  to  enjoy. 
Pack  your  infant  when  it  is  born  in  a  little 
trunk  with  perforated  lid,  and  take  it  about 
with  you,  or  leave  it  behind.     Don't  let  it  be 

64 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

a  hindrance  or  a  barrier  between  you  two  in 
your  joint  lives. 

There  is  a  great  deal  more  that  I  should 
like  to  write,  but  now  I  must  go  and  dress. 
You  know  "Tristan  and  Isolde"  always  was 
my  favourite  opera. 

I  was  going  to  urge  you  not  to  show  this  let- 
ter to  Malthe,  but,  after  all,  I  leave  you  a  free 
hand  in  the  matter. 

For  many  reasons  I  believe  that  if  he  saw 
it  the  consequences  would  not  be  disastrous. 

With  many  embraces.  I  wish  you  a  happi- 
ness that  will  last  through  life. 

Your 

Elsie  Lindtner. 

You  need  not  trouble  to  find  me  more  lace 
patterns.  I  have  presented  my  whole  collec- 
tion to  the  Metropolitan  Museum.  My  new 
craze,  dwarf  cacti,  amuses  me  far  more — they 
can't  be  enclosed  in  letters  and  newspapers 
unfortunately. 

5  65 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

When  did  they  first  meet?  It  is  no  con- 
cern of  mine,  but  I  can't  help  thinking  much 
about  it.  Did  they  know  each  other  before? 
Yes,  of  course.  He  looked  after  her  when 
she  passed  through  the  room.  From  me  he 
looked  across  at  her — and  compared.  And 
after — yes,  what  after?  Did  he  think  con- 
tinually of  Jeanne  as  before  he  thought  of  me? 
Or  is  it  merely  because  chance  has  thrown 
them  together  in  Paris?  Or  is  it  possible  that 
they  did  not  recognise  each  other  at  first,  and 
only  discovered-  later  where  they  had  met 
for  the  first  time?  Have  I  played  any  part 
in  their  conversation?  Have  they  clasped 
hands  over  my  memory,  as  over  a  grave? 


* 


I  don't  grudge  them  their  happiness. 
Jeanne  is  the  right  woman  for  him,  and  only  a 
Joergen  Malthe  could  satisfy  and  supplement 
Jeanne's  whole  nature. 

66 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

How  has  it  come  about  that  everything  in 
me  has  gone  to  rest?  I  feel  like  a  heap  of 
faded  leaves  lying  down  somewhere  in  a  deep 
hollow,  where  not  a  breath  of  wind  reaches 
it,  and  it  lulls  itself  to  sleep. 

I  don't  live  now  as  I  used  to  live,  and  I  have 
no  goal  to  strive  for;  but  I  have  no  cares, 
much  less  do  I  feel  in  despair  about  anything. 
Truly,  I  am  very  comfortable  in  mind  and 
body.  I  should  not  mind  living  for  ever  this 
sort  of  life.  Yet  at  the  same  time  I  should 
feel  no  alarm  if  some  one  came  and  said,  "You 
must  die  to-night." 


When  I  consider  it  in  broad  daylight,  I 
have  a  heap  of  enjoyments,  small  and  in- 
significant, but  perfectly  unclouded  enjoy- 
ments. 

* 

Yes,  here  1  am  laid  up  with  measles — at 
67 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

my  age — a  fiery  rash,  and  everything  else. 
Perhaps  I  shall  get  whooping-cough  next? 
It  would  be  much  the  best  plan  if  one  could 
have  every  childish  complaint  at  once  and 
have  done  with  it.  It  is  boring  in  this  magnifi- 
cent carbolic-scented  clinic;  but  the  nursing 
is  good,  and  it  is  said  to  be  healthy  to  be 
bored.  I  always  fancied  the  much  spoken 
about  self-sacrifice  nurses  to  be  an  old  wives' 
tale. 

In  the  room  next  mine,  there  is  the  most 
passionate  little  monster  of  a  boy  nine  months 
old,  and  no  one  would  believe  it,  but  all  the 
nurses  are  willing  to  give  up  their  sorely 
needed  night's  rest  for  his  sake.  I,  for  my 
part,  wish  he  was  in  a  hot  place. 

And  then  they  actually  ask  me  if  I  wouldn't 
like  to  have  him  "in  my  bed  for  a  little." 
Heaven  protect  me  and  my  well-conditioned 
intellect!  Oh!  I  pity  the  poor  women  who 
have  several  little  children  at  the  same  time! 
I'd  like  to  know  how  many  mothers   really 

68 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

feel    for   their   children — because   it   is   their 
children. 

Richard  will  get  it  with  that  wonder  of  a 
child.  He  boasts  about  his  teeth,  but  he  says 
nothing  about  the  pain  getting  those  teeth  has 
cost  him. 

*       * 

Yesterday  I  had  a  visit  from  a  convalescent, 
who  went  round  paying  visits  to  the  patients 
who  were  still  lying  in  bed.  I  shall  make 
friends  with  her.  She  amuses  me.  How 
well  I  understood  that  there  can  be  a  certain 
charm  in  studying  bacteria  and  bacilli — small 
causes,  huge  results. 

Frankly,  I  thought  at  first  that  she  had  been 
in  a  reformatory.  There  was  something 
about  her  that  gave  the  impression  that  she 
must  have  been  under  restraint.  I  was  quite 
prepared  that  she  would  confess  to  having 
committed  some  crime.  But  no,  that  wasn't 
it. 

69 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

She  had  only  been  in  all  innocence  a  nun 
for  twenty-two  years.  Twenty-two  years  a 
nun!  Think  of  it!  There  were  the  years, 
too,  that  she  was  pupil  and  novice,  making 
altogether  twenty-six  years  behind  the  walls 
of  a  convent,  subjected  to  the  convent  disci- 
pline and  the  weary  convent  habit.  And  now 
she  has  broken  loose,  like  a  prisoner  who 
makes  a  rope  of  his  bedclothes  to  escape  over 
walls  to  freedom. 

She  had  compelled — how,  she  did  not  dis- 
close— the  Church  to  set  her  at  liberty,  and 
now  was  beginning  to  live  her  own  life  for  the 
first  time.  The  life  which  she  left  at  sixteen 
she  has  now  taken  up  again  at  the  age  of  forty- 
two.     She  looks  like  a  person  of  sixty. 

I  could  not  forbear  putting  the  indiscreet 
question,  why  she  had  broken  away?  And 
she  replied,  what  was  evidently  the  truth,  that 
when  she  noticed  she  was  beginning  to  grow 
old,  a  doubt  arose  within  her  as  to  whether 
the  life  in  the  world  outside  was  not  richer 

70 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

than  the  life  behind  the  convent  walls.  She 
has  given  all  her  large  fortune  to  the  Church, 
and  now  lives  on  a  scanty  allowance  grudg- 
ingly doled  out  to  her  by  one  of  the  sisters. 

But  she  is  happy  as  a  queen  in  two  little 
rooms,  where  she  is  her  own  mistress,  able  to 
eat  and  drink  when  she  wants  to,  and  as  much 
as  she  likes.  And  she  can  serve  her  God  un- 
bidden by  the  ding-dong  of  the  chapel  bell — 
for  she  has  not  abjured  her  faith. 

The  one  desire  of  her  heart  now  is  to  find 
a  man  who'll  marry  her.  Her  modesty  is  cer- 
tainly touching.  She  doesn't  mind  who  he  is, 
or  what  he  looks  like,  if  only  she  may  be 
granted  the  wonderful  happiness  of  having  a 
husband.     I  lied  my  utmost  to  comfort  her. 

And  if  she  can't  get  a  husband,  she  in- 
tends to  adopt  a  child. 

A  really  sick,  starving,  miserable  child.  I 
said  tamely,  that  if  I  cherished — as  God  for- 
bid that  I  should — such  a  fad,  I  would,  at  all 
events,  seek  out  a  healthy,  pretty,  and  well- 

71 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

nourished  infant.  Whereupon  she  answered, 
"I  don't  want  a  child  to  live  for  my  sake;  I 
want  to  live  for  the  sake  of  a  child."  She  is 
a  fine,  but  rather  queer  creature.  And  she 
has  promised  to  come  and  see  me  every  day. 

* 
*       * 

Sister  Ethel  has  bet  me  a  palm — she  has  ob- 
viously an  empty  tub  in  her  room — that  if 
once  I  had  the  little  boy  next  door  with  me 
for  an  hour,  I  should  take  him  to  my  heart. 

I  would  rather  give  her  the  palm  straight 
off,  and  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  little  boy; 
but  still,  if  it  gives  her  any  pleasure,  well,  I'll 
have  him  this  afternoon,  but  directly  the  hour 
is  over,  clean  sheets. 


* 
*      * 


To  my  eternal  shame  I  am  bound  to  confess 
that  I  have  lost  the  palm.  It  may  be  that  all 
the  nun's  sentimental  gabble  has  affected  my 

72 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

brain  1     I,  who  abhor  the  scent  of  little  chil- 
dren, and  shudder  to  touch  them. 

He  lay  perfectly  still  and  squinted  up  at  me, 
sucking  a  finger.  It  was  the  little  finger.  I 
really  shouldn't  mind  losing  another  palm, 
but  my  pride,  God  be  praised,  prevents  my 
giving  expression  to  the  wish. 

He  doesn't  cry  when  he  is  with  me.  No- 
body can  understand  it.  In  the  night  when 
he  was  crying,  I,  foolish  old  person,  rose  from 
my  bed  of  measles,  and  went  to  look  in  on  him. 
I  thought  the  nurse  had  gone  away.  It  was 
rather  a  painful  situation. 


73 


DEAR  Professor  Rothe/ 
Your  letter  was  such  a  shock  to  me 
that  I  could  not  answer  it  at  once.  .  .  . 
That  is  why  I  sent  you  the  brief  telegram  in 
reply,  the  words  of  which  I  am  sorry  I  must 
repeat,  "I  know  nothing  about  the  matter." 
Lili  has  never  spoken  of  it  to  me,  or  made  the 
least  allusion  which  could  cause  me  to  suspect 
such  a  thing.  I  may  truthfully  say  that  I 
never  heard  her  mention  the  name  of  Director 
Schlegel.  My  first  idea  was  that  Lili  had 
gone  out  of  her  mind,  and  I  was  surprised 
that  you,  a  medical  man,  should  not  have 
come  to  the  same  conclusion. 

But,  after  thinking  it  over  for  the  last  two 
days,  I  have  changed  my  opinion.  I  think 
I  am  beginning  to  understand  what  has  hap- 

^  Extracts  from  an  earlier  letter  of  Elsie  Lindtner's  to  Pro- 
fessor Rothe,  in  "The  Dangerous  Age,"  are  given  here  again, 
as  they  throw  light  on  the  episode  which  follows. 

74 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

pened,  and  I  beg  you  to  hold  me  alone 
responsible  for  what  I  am  going  to  say. 
.  .  .  I  am  only  making  suppositions.  Lili 
has  not  broken  her  marriage  vows.  Any 
suspicion  of  such  a  thing  is  out  of  the  ques- 
tion, her  nature  was  too  upright,  too  loyal. 
.  .  .  If  she  appeared  to  you  and  the  world 
happy  in  her  married  life,  it  was  because 
she  really  was  so.  I  entreat  you  to  believe 
this. 

Lili,  who  never  told  even  a  conventional 
lie,  who  watched  over  her  children  like  an 
old-fashioned  mother,  careful  of  what  they 
read  and  what  plays  they  saw — how  could 
she  carry  on  an  intrigue  unknown  to  you 
and  them?  Perfectly  impossible,  my  dear 
Professor.  I  don't  say  that  she  didn't 
speak  the  words  you  heard,  but  that  you 
must  have  put  a  wrong  interpretation  on 
them. 

Not  once,  but  thousands  of  times,  Lili  has 
talked    about    you    to    me.     She    loved   and 

75 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

honoured   you.     You   were   her   ideal    man, 
husband,  and  father. 

She  used  literally  to  become  eloquent  on 
the  subject  of  your  operations.  .  .  .  She 
studied  Latin  in  order  that  she  might  under- 
stand your  scientific  books,  while,  in  spite  of 
her  natural  repulsion  from  the  sight  of  such 
things,  she  attended  your  anatomy  classes  and 
demonstrations. 

When  Lili  said,  "I  love  Schlegel  and  have 
loved  him  for  years,"  her  words  did  not  mean, 
"And  all  that  time  my  love  for  you  was  ex- 
tinct." 

No,  Lili  cared  for  Schlegel,  and  for  you, 
too.  .  .  .  Probably  you  are  saying  to  your- 
self, "A  woman  must  love  one  man  or  the 
other." 

With  some  show  of  reason  you  will  argue, 
"In  leaving  my  house,  at  any  rate,  she  proved 
that  Schlegel  alone  claimed  her  aflfection." 

Nevertheless  I  maintain  that  you  are 
wrong. 

76 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

Lili  showed  every  sign  of  a  sane,  well- 
balanced  nature.  Well,  her  famous  serenity 
and  calmness  deceived  us  all.  Behind  this 
serene  exterior  was  the  most  feminine  of  all 
feminine  qualities — the  fanciful  imagination 
of  the  visionary.  Do  you  or  I  know  anything 
about  her  first  girlish  dreams?  Have  you,  in 
spite  of  your  happy  life  together,  ever  really 
understood  her  innermost  soul?  Forgive  me, 
but  I  do  not  think  you  have. 

When  a  man  possesses  a  woman  as  com- 
pletely as  you  possessed  Lili,  he  thinks  him- 
self quite  safe.  You  never  doubted  for  a  mo- 
ment that,  having  vou,  she  could  wish  for 
anything  else. 

You  are  not  only  a  clever  and  capable  man, 
you  are  kind,  and  an  entertaining  companion; 
in  short,  you  have  many  excellent  qualities 
which  Lili  exalted  to  the  skies.  But  your 
nature  is  not  very  poetical;  you  are,  in  fact, 
rather  prosaic,  and  only  believe  what  you  see. 

Contrast  this  with  Lili's  immense  forbear- 
77 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

ancc.  You  remember  how  we  used  to  laugh 
when  she  defended  some  criminal  who  was 
beyond  all  defence  or  apology.  Something 
intense  and  far-seeing  came  into  her  expres- 
sion, and  her  heart,  prompted  such  a  line  of 
argument  which  reason  could  not  support. 
She  stood  all  alone  in  her  sympathy,  facing 
cold  and  incredulous  people. 

Then  recollect  the  pleasure  it  gave  her 
to  discuss  religious  and  philosophical  ques- 
tions. 

She  was  not  "religious"  in  the  common 
acceptation  of  the  word.  But  she  liked  to 
get  at  the  bottom  of  things,  and  to  use  her 
imagination.  We  others  were  indifferent  or 
frankly  bored. 

And  Lili  was  so  gentle  she  gave  way  to  us. 

Recall,  too,  her  passion  for  flowers.  She 
felt  a  physical  pang  to  see  cut  flowers  with 
their  stalks  out  of  water.  Once  I  saw  her 
buy  up  a  flower  girl's  whole  stock,  because  the 
poor  things  wanted  water.     You  and  your 

78 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

children  have  no  love  of  flowers.  As  a  doc- 
tor, you  are  inclined  to  think  it  unhealthy  to 
have  plants  in  your  rooms;  consequently  there 
were  none  and  Lili  never  grumbled. 

Lili  did  not  care  for  modern  music.  Cesar 
Franck  wearied  her,  and  Wagner  gave  her 
a  headache.  An  old-fashioned  harpsichord 
would  be  her  favourite  instrument,  whereas 
at  home  her  daughters  thundered  out  Rubin- 
stein and  Wagner  upon  a  concert  grand,  and 
you,  dear  Professor,  when  in  a  good  humour, 
strode  about  the  house  whistling  horribly  out 
of  tune. 

Finally,  Lili  liked  quiet,  musical  speech, 
and  she  was  surrounded  by  people  who  talked 
at  the  top  of  their  voices. 

.  .  .  She  was  happy  because  she  willed 
to  be  happy.  She  had  made  up  her  mind  that 
she  was  the  luckiest  woman  in  existence 
.  .  .  happy  in  everything,  and  she  was 
deeply  grateful  to  you.  But  in  the  depths  of 
her  heart — so  deep  down  that  it  never  rose 

79 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

to  the  surface  even  as  a  dream — lay  that  secret 
trouble  which  has  caused  the  present  mis- 
chief. 

I  know  nothing  of  her  relations  to  Schlegel, 
but  I  think  I  may  venture  to  say  that  they 
were  chiefly  limited  to  intercourse  of  the 
soul;  .  .  .  and  so  were  fatal.  Have  you  ever 
noticed  the  timbre  of  Schlegel's  voice?  He 
spoke  slowly  and  so  softly;  I  can  quite  believe 
it  attracted  your  wife  in  the  beginning;  and 
that  afterwards  gradually,  and  almost  im- 
perceptibly, she  gravitated  towards  him. 

The  man  is  now  at  death's  door,  and  can 
never  explain  what  passed  between  them — 
even  admitting  that  there  was  anything  wrong. 
As  far  as  I  know,  Schlegel  was  infatuated  with 
a  totally  dififerent  woman.  Had  he  been 
really  in  love  with  Lili,  would  he  have  been 
content  with  a  few  words  and  an  occasional 
pressure  of  her  hand? 

Why,  then,  has  Lili  left  you,  and  why  does 
she  refuse  to  give  you  an  explanation?     Why 

80 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

does  she  allow  you  to  draw  the  worst  con- 
clusions? 

I  will  tell  you.  Lili  is  in  love  with  two 
men  at  the  same  time.  Their  different  per- 
sonalities and  natures  satisfy  both  sides  of  her 
character.  If  Schlegel  had  not  fallen  from 
his  horse  and  broken  his  back,  thereby  losing 
all  his  faculties,  Lili  would  have  remained 
with  you  and  continued  to  be  a  model  wife 
and  mother. 

In  the  same  way,  had  you  been  the  victim 
of  the  accident,  she  would  have  forgotten  all 
about  Schlegel,  and  would  have  lived  for  you 
alone. 

.  .  .  Lili  had  not  the  strength  to  fight  the 
first  sharp  anguish.  The  shock  bewildered 
her,  and  the  love  of  her  imagination  seemed 
to  her  at  the  moment  the  true  one.  She  felt 
she  was  betraying  you,  Schlegel,  and  herself; 
and  since  self-sacrifice  had  become  the  law  of 
her  life,  she  was  prepared  to  renounce  every- 
thing as  a  proof  of  her  love. 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

You,  Professor  Rothe,  have  acted  very 
foolishly.  You  have  done  just  what  any 
average  conventional  man  would  have  done. 
Your  hurt  vanity  silenced  the  voice  of  your 
heart. 

You  had  the  choice  of  thinking  two  things : 
either  Lili  was  mad,  or  she  was  responsible 
for  her  actions.  You  were  convinced  that 
she  was  sane,  and  playing  you  false  in  cold 
blood.  .  .  . 

You  write  that  you  have  only  taken  your 
two  elder  daughters  into  your  confidence. 
How  could  you  have  found  it  in  your  heart 
to  do  this  .  .  .  ? 

Lili  knew  you  better  than  I  supposed.  She 
knew  that  behind  your  apparent  kindness 
there  lurked  a  cold,  self-satisfied  nature.  She 
understood  that  she  would  be  accounted  a 
stranger  and  a  sinner  in  your  house  the  mo- 
ment you  discovered  in  her  a  thought  or 
sentiment  that  was  not  subordinate  to  your 
will. 

82 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

You  have  let  her  go,  believing  that  she  had 
been  playing  a  pretty  part  behind  your  back, 
and  that  I  was  her  confidante,  and  perhaps 
also  the  instigator  of  her  wicked  deeds. 

Lili  has  taken  refuge  with  her  children's 
old  nurse. 

How  significant!  Lili,  who  had  so  many 
friends,  knows  by  a  subtler  instinct  that  none 
of  them  would  befriend  her  in  her  misfor- 
tune. If  you,  Professor  Rothe,  were  a  gen- 
erous-hearted man,  you  would  explain  to  the 
chief  doctor  at  the  Infirmary  Lili's  great  de- 
sire to  stay  near  Schlegel  until  the  end  comes. 

She  loves  you,  and  it  would  fill  her  with 
grateful  joy.  ...  If  Lili  had  your  consent  to 
be  near  Schlegel  she  would  certainly  not 
refuse  to  come  back  to  her  wifely  duties  as 
soon  as  he  was  dead.  At  first  she  might  not 
be  able  to  conceal  her  grief,  and  then  it  would 
be  your  task  to  help  her  to  regain  her  peace 
of  mind.  .  .  .  Schlegel  was  a  man,  but  had 
he  been  a  portrait  or  a  character  in  a  novel, 

83 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

Lili  would  have  fallen  in  love  with  him  just 
the  same,  because  her  love  was  purely  of  the 
imagination. 

You  must  do  what  you  please.  But  one 
thing  I  wish  you  to  understand.  ...  If  you 
are  not  going  to  act  in  the  matter  I  shall  act. 
I  confess  openly  that  I  am  a  selfish  woman, 
but  I  am  very  fond  of  Lili,  and  if  you  abandon 
her  in  this  cruel  and  senseless  way  I  shall 
have  her  to  live  with  me  here,  and  shall  do 
my  best  to  console  her  for  the  loss  of  an  un- 
grateful husband,  and  a  pack  of  stupid,  un- 
demonstrative children. 

One  of  Lili's  tears  is  worth  more  than  all 
your  masculine  ebulitions  of  wrath. 

One  word  more  before  I  finish.  Lili,  so 
far  as  I  can  remember,  is  a  year  older  than 
I  am.  Could  you  not,  woman's  specialist  as 
you  are,  have  found  some  excuse  for  her  in 
this  fact?  Had  Lili  been  fifty-eight  or  thirty- 
five,  all  this  would  never  have  happened.  I 
do  not  care  for  strangers  to  look  into  my  per- 

84 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

sonal  affairs,  and  although  you  are  my  cousin's 
husband,  you  are  practically  a  stranger  to  me. 
Nevertheless,  I  may  remind  you  that  women 
at  our  time  of  life  pass  through  critical  mo- 
ments, as  I  know  by  daily  experiences.  A 
week  or  two  ago  it  might  have  been  impos- 
sible to  write  a  letter  such  as  this.  I  should 
probably  have  reeled  off  pages  of  incoherent 
abuse. 

Show  Lili  that  your  love  was  not  selfish- 
ness pure  and  simple. 

With  kind  regards. 

Sincerely  yours, 

Elsie  Lindtner. 


85 


DEAR  Professor  Rothe, 
Lili  has  closed  her  eyes  never  to 
open  them  again.     It  will  scarcely  be 
a  great  blow  to  you  and  yours  after  what  has 
passed;  much  more  will  it  be  a  relief.     For 
her,  indeed,  it  was  so. 

I  feel  it  my  duty  to  Lili,  not  to  you,  to 
write  this  letter.  You  may  make  what  use 
you  please  of  it.  It  was  I  who  procured  Lili 
the  sleeping  draught,  for  which  she  had  such 
a  burning  desire.  With  my  hand  in  hers  I 
sat  beside  her  till  she  was  cold,  and  I  do  not 
repent  that  I  had  the  courage  to  commit  what 
you,  as  a  physician,  will  call  a  crime. 

A  few  days  before  she  fell  asleep  Lili  en- 
trusted a  packet  of  letters  to  my  care.  I  read 
them  in  the  night,  and  now  lay  them  in  the 
coffin  under  her  head.  These  letters  were 
not  to  be  read  by  the  unauthorised,  and  you 

86 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

have  become  in  relation  to  Lili  one  of  the  un- 
authorised. 

You  have  called  her's  a  harlot-nature — 
not  in  a  moment  of  excitement,  but  because, 
after  weighty  consideration,  you  arrived  at  a 
conclusion  to  which  the  word  was  appro- 
priate. It  is  not  in  my  power  to  give  you  the 
satisfaction  which  you  deserve,  but  I  wish 
that  the  hour  may  come  in  which  you  will 
see  what  a  desperate  wrong  you  and  your 
abominable  children  have  done  Lili. 

Harlot-nature,  indeed!  You  can  say  that 
of  Lili  to  whom  you  were  married  for  twenty 
years — Lili,  the  purest  of  beings! 

You  say,  "She  married  me,  she  bore  me 
children,  she  professed  to  love  me,  and  all 
the  time  she  had  a  lover  behind  my  back.  So 
she  was  of  a  harlot-nature!" 

Professor  Rothe,  permit  me  to  accompany 
you  into  your  most  private  consulting  room, 
the  room  in  which  you  examine  the  most 
modest  of  your  lady  patients.     Let  me  have 

87 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

it  out  with  you,  and  inquire  into  your  secret 
motives.  It  is  possible  that  your  modesty 
will  be  shocked,  but  you  shall  hear  what 
I  have  to  say  on  Lili's  behalf,  and  on 
those  words,  "Judge  not  that  ye  be  not 
judged." 

When  you  married  her  your  choice  was 
made  according  to  the  dictates  of  your  heart, 
and  fell  on  a  very  young  girl  who  lived  on 
the  blue  heights  of  idealism.  She  was  your 
wife,  your  friend,  the  mother  of  your  chil- 
dren, the  good  angel  of  your  home.  And 
would  you  dare  add  that  she  was  your  love 
also?  Yes.  You  think  that  because  she 
loved  you,  and  you  loved  her,  and  because  you 
took  her  in  your  arms  as  your  wife,  that  she 
was,  of  course  your  love.  .  .  . 

But  I  tell  you  Lili  was  never  your  love,  and 
that  she  never  had  a  lover.  And  the  whole 
time  you  have  known  it  perfectly  well.  An- 
swer me,  if  you  like,  ''There  are  thousands 
and  thousands  of  women  who,  like  Lili,  are 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

without  feeling  in  this  respect  .  .  .  still  she 
loved  another,  and  so  deceived  me." 

Is  a  rose  less  red  and  fragrant,  because 
there  are  thousands  of  other  red  sweet- 
smelling  roses? 

But  Lili's  nature  was  so  pure,  so  refined, 
that  this  deficiency  as  you  would  call  it,  did 
not  exist  for  her.  She  knew  what  it  meant, 
for  she  was  not  ignorant.  She  understood  in 
others  what  she  did  not  recognise  in  herself. 
She  lived  for  you,  her  children,  and  her 
household,  her  own  beautiful  world,  so  es- 
sential was  it  for  her  to  shed  light  and  spread 
joy  around  her. 

From  this  arose  that  wonderful  harmony 
of  her  being,  making  of  the  non-waking  of 
what  was  dormant  within  her,  neither  a  trial 
nor  a  renunciation.  If  Lili  had  been  blind 
she  would  have  had  the  same  happy  nature, 
and  would  have  learned  the  beauty  of  joyous- 
ness  through  the  eyes  of  every  seeing  soul. 

There  never  arose  within  her,  as  in  the  case 
89 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

of  so  many  poor  women,  a  conscious  renuncia- 
tion of  the  fire  of  the  senses. 

How  infinitely  she  must  have  loved  and 
reverenced  you,  to  have  been  able  to  tolerate 
without  complaint,  without  abhorrence  and  a 
sense  of  renunciation,  the  position  of  being 
your  wife  for  so  many  years. 

Schlegel  was  not  her  lover,  though  she 
loved  him,  and  she  was  more  intimate  with 
him  than  I  thought  at  first  .  .  .  and,  listen, 
she  loved  him  with  unlimited  abandon,  be- 
cause he  did  not  possess  a  husband's  rights  to 
lord  it  over  her,  and  did  not  assume  them. 
This  she  was  unconscious  of.  But  there  ex- 
isted a  ...  a  difference  between  her  feelings 
for  you  and  for  him.  He  personified  all  that 
she  had  dreamed  in  her  childish  years  of 
"Love,"  and  continued  to  personify  it  till  her 
last  hour. 

Once  she  loved  you  thus,  too,  and  would 
have  gone  on  loving  you  in  the  same  way  if 

90 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

you  had  not  desecrated  her  without  awaken- 
ing the  woman  within  her. 

Lili  was  the  Sleeping  Beauty  who  slum- 
bered eternally.  No  knight  ever  roused  her 
from  her  sleep.  But  you,  the  man  to  whom 
she  presented  her  life's  happiness,  called  her 
harlot-naturedl 

Her  last  days  were  given  up  to  a  despair- 
ing desire  for  death  and  pardon  for  the  sin 
which  she  had  never  committed. 

The  Lili  who  came  over  here  was  so 
changed  that  I  hardly  knew  her.  My  first 
thought  as  she  touched  me  and  uttered  my 
name  was,  "Who  is  to  blame  for  this?"  It 
was  not  only  a  broken-hearted  woman,  but  a 
detested  and  ill-treated  human  creature  who 
flew  from  the  pursuit  of  her  persecutors  to 
die,  deserted,  in  a  foreign  land. 

The  Lili  I  once  knew  used  to  come  into  a 
room  as  the  sunshine  penetrates  a  wood,  like 
joy  itself.     Every  one  could  see  through  her 

91 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

radiant  exterior  right  into  the  floor  of  her 
pure,  white  soul. 

But  the  Lili  who  came  over  here  trembled 
in  every  limb  and  dared  not  meet  the  eyes  of 
anybody.  Schlegel  lies  in  his  grave.  When 
he  lived  I  regarded  him  as  indifferently  as 
I  should  any  stranger.  Now  my  thoughts  go 
out  to  him  full  of  thankfulness. 

And  Lili  came  home  to  you  and  ate  the 
bread  of  humiliation  for  four  long  years  in 
your  house,  while  people  admired  you  because 
you  had  pardoned  her  so  magnanimously. 
Your  abominable  children  looked  down  on 
their  mother  and  behaved  to  her  as  to  one  not 
responsible  for  her  actions.  Dancing  went 
on  in  your  house,  Professor  Rothe,  and 
Lili  sat  upstairs  alone  in  her  room.  Be- 
trothal festivities  were  celebrated  by  your 
family,  while  the  mistress  of  the  house  was 
said  to  be  ill,  so  that  her  pale,  grief-stricken 
face  should  not  cast  a  shadow  on  the  festive 
scene. 

92 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

I  did  the  little  I  could,  all  that  was  in  my 
power  to  win  back  the  old,  dear  Lili,  but  it 
was  too  late.  One  cannot  say  that  her  mind 
was  under  a  cloud,  but  she  brooded  day  and 
night  over  a  problem  which  she  could  not 
solve.  Mostly  she  sat  looking  down  on  her 
hands,  which  were  never  still.  Sometimes  she 
talked  of  the  children.  She  had  once  over- 
heard Edmee  say  to  one  of  the  maids,  it  would 
be  much  better  if  mother  were  sent  to  an  in- 
stitution. Those  words  she  could  never  for- 
get. 

Professor  Rothe!  Time  after  time  un- 
happy women  have  come  to  you  to  be  consoled, 
and  helped  by  your  explaining  to  them  that 
the  dangerous  years  of  transition  may  affect 
the  brain  of  even  the  steadiest  and  most  nor- 
mal of  women. 

You  could  treat  others  with  consideration 
and  give  them  shrewd  and  kind  advice.  But 
for  Lili's  dangerous  period  you  did  not  con- 
cern yourself.     You  allowed  fate  to  shatter 

93 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

her  beautiful  existence.  You  never  stretched 
out  a  hand  to  protect  her.  For  Lili's  sake 
I  cannot  help  hoping  that  there  is  a  resur- 
rection after  death,  a  place  "where  nothing 
is  dishonoured,  where  all  is  love."  To  such 
a  place  Lili  belongs.  I  have  chosen  a  grave 
for  her,  looking  south,  where  flowers  will 
flourish,  and  have  done  it  in  my  name. 

To-morrow,  I  shall  send  you  the  necessary 
business  details — a  death  certificate  referring 
to  heart  disease — even  if  I  have  to  write  it 
myself. 

I  have  opened  the  window.  The  river  is 
as  blue  as  it  used  to  be  at  home  in  light  nights. 
Here  it  is  the  moon  that  makes  it  blue.  If 
only  I  had  the  power  I  would  lay  Lili  in  a 
boat  and  let  her  drift  out  to  sea. 

Elsie  Lindtner. 


94 


LETTERS  FROM  LILI  ROTHE  TO 
THE  MAN  SHE  LOVED 

I  HAVE  accumulated  so  many  letters  from 
you.  To-day  another  has  come — a  let- 
ter from  you  to  me  I 
Thus  I  know  that  you  still  think  of  me. 
And  it  does  me  good  to  know  it.  I  go  about 
thinking  of  you  always  and  always,  and  it 
makes  me  happy.  I  want  nothing  different 
and  nothing  else  but  to  be  allowed  to  love 
you. 

The  letter  ...  in  my  hand,  in  my  posses- 
sion .  .  .  you,  who  understand  what  it  is  to 
love,  will  know  how  it  is  when  one  loves. 
Every  trifling  thing  becomes  a  heaven  and  an 
earth. 

The  letter  in  my  hand  .  .  .  that  means 
holding  minutes  of  your  time.  Time  is  life. 
So  I  possess  a  bit  of  your  life.     For  you  the 

95 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

minutes  have  vanished,  like  raindrops  sunk 
in  the  ground;  for  me  they  have  imperishable 
qualities;  they  are  like  seeds  that  send  up 
shoots  and  more  shoots,  to  be  nourished  by  the 
sun  and  moisture  of  my  love. 

And  what  was  there  in  the  letter?  I  am 
not  ashamed  to  answer,  only  word  after  word, 
like  footprint  after  footprint  on  a  muddy 
path.  The  written  sheets  contain  hardly 
more  than  the  blank  ones.  But  I  did  not  ex- 
pect that  they  would,  how  could  I  expect  it? 

For  you  I  am  simply  one  among  many. 
No,  perhaps  a  little  more,  a  tiny  bit  more. 
You  said  the  first  time  we  were  alone  to- 
gether ...  not  to  me  .  .  .  that  my  nature 
was  congenial  to  you.  That  meant  you  liked 
to  be  in  my  neighbourhood — my  poor  little 
neighbourhood.  I  feel  such  pity  for  myself 
when  we  are  together.  It  is  like  being  two 
people,  one  of  whom  has  to  do  and  say  the 
very  opposite  of  what  the  other  would  like  to 
say  and  do.  .  .  .  Only  when  I  go  away  from 

96 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

you  and  your  glance  follows  me  like  a  living 
shadow,  that  doesn't  belong  to  me,  I  feel 
frightened  and  ashamed  as  a  child.  I  am 
nervous  about  my  walk,  my  figure,  my  move- 
ments, lest  they  should  jar  on  you,  and  then 
I  try  to  appear  nonchalant.  I  talk  and 
laugh,  and  am  two  people  at  once,  one  of 
whom  watches  the  gaucheries  of  the  other 
with  sad  eyes;  the  other  who  is  quite  at  sea 
how  she  shall  act  to  please  you.  And  that  is 
I  myself,  I,  who  in  every  one  else's  society,  feel 
as  free  as  the  pollen  of  the  buttercups  as  it  flies 
over  the  fields.  I  talk  on  and  on  as  if  I  must 
fill  space  with  my  words,  fearful  that  the  em- 
barrassment of  silence  will  turn  my  features 
to  stone,  fearful,  too,  of  discovering  a  glint 
of  boredom  in  your  glance.  Your  glance! 
It  is  like  a  dark,  slowly  flowing  river  that 
bears  your  soul  towards  me. 

When  you  look  at  me,  a  new  world  is  born 
within  and  around  me.     It  is  as  on  that  day 

when  the  Lord  said,  "Let  there  be  light,  and 

7  97 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

there  was  light."  Your  glance  has  divided 
me  inwardly  into  light  and  darkness,  which 
are  a  greater  contrast  than  night  and  sun. 

Your  glance  penetrates  every  drop  of  blood 
in  my  veins,  as  the  sunshine  soaks  into  the 
sleeping  earth,  and  awakes  to  life  its  slum- 
bering powers. 

I  know  when  your  glance  is  resting  on  me 
like  a  tired  hand  on  the  arm  of  a  chair. 
When  you  contemplate  me  without  seeing 
me,  because  you  are  thinking  of  those  cares 
which  I  divine,  though  I  know  nothing  about 
them,  something  cries  out  within  me,  not 
from  one  place  but  from  a  thousand.  Then 
warm  founts  of  pity  and  grief  overflow  my 
inward  being. 

But  don't  be  afraid,  my  friend,  that  I  shall 
speak  of  what  I  suspect.  If  you  would 
rather  no  one  should  know,  I  will  be  silent — 
like  a  flower  at  evening  I  will  close  my  eyes, 
compelled  by  the  darkness  in  which  you  en- 
velop yourself. 

98 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

And  I  will  go  on  seeming  to  understand 
nothing,  nothing  at  all.  But  your  mouth,  be- 
loved, your  mouth,  and  your  dear,  beautiful 
hands  betray  you. 

There  is  a  quiver  and  trembling  round  the 
corners  of  your  mouth  as  if  the  unspoken 
words  lay  there  in  ambush — and  your  hands 
look  so  helpless. 

Your  hands,  whose  grasp  can  be  so  majes- 
tically firm  and  strong,  hang  limply  down, 
but  you  are  not  aware  of  it.  At  times  your 
hands  appear  to  me  so  full  of  "sin,  sorrow, 
and  peril,"  that  I  feel  as  if  my  soul  were 
responsible  for  yours. 

I  talk  to  you  like  this,  beloved,  because  you 
will  never  know.  There  are  other  days  when 
your  glance,  as  you  look  at  me,  is  like  a  blue 
flower  that  blossoms  in  the  sacred  garden  of 
dreams,  but  only  because  you  are  happy  in 
yourself,  only  because  of  that.  You  have 
had  some  pleasant  experience,  or  built  up 
some  new  hope.  ...  I  think,  then,  that  you 

99 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

have  derived  strength  from  the  glance  that  is 
life  to  you,  as  yours  is  my  own  life's  fountain. 

At  those  times  your  glance  flashes  towards 
me,  and  a  smile  comes  and  goes  on  your  lips. 
It  comes  from  the  foundation  of  your  being, 
and  is  astonished  at  itself.  At  those  times 
your  figure  is  upright  and  elastic,  and  if  you 
walk  across  a  room  you  move  with  a  rhythm 
that  touches  me  like  a  song. 

But,  beloved  .  .  .  you  have  yet  another,  a 
third  look  .  .  .  and  this  I  recall  when  it 
grows  dark.  I  fear  it  the  most  and  love  it 
the  most.  It's  when  you  realise  I  am  a 
woman  .  .  .  suddenly,  as  if  a  mask  fell  from 
my  face,  you  realise  that  I  am  a  woman,  and 
hot  only  a  woman,  but  a  woman  meant  for 
you.  And  the  smile  that  then  encloses  me 
like  a  snare  has  not  its  origin  in  your  con- 
sciousness and  knowledge  of  my  love,  but  its 
origin  is  in  me  because  I  am  a  woman.  And 
then,  of  course,  because  in  the  kindness  of 
your  heart  you  are  glad  to  give  me  the  pleas- 

lOO 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

ure  of  remembering  that  I  am  a  woman,  your 
eyes  fill  with  a  misty  twilight,  and  into  this 
twilight  I  sink  as  into  an  everlasting  night. 

I  feel  your  arm  supporting  my  neck,  your 
cheek's  melancholy  pressure.  Shuddering 
we  stand  leaning  against  each  other,  like  two 
pines  of  the  forest,  that  for  a  short  space  a 
hurricane  of  storm  wind  has  flung  together 
only  to  separate  them  again. 

All  the  time  your  smile  is  cold  and  medita- 
tive, and  your  glance  is  extinguished  like  a 
lamp  that  has  consumed  its  last  drop  of  oil. 
My  poor  heart  tells  me  the  reason — you  are 
wondering  at  yourself  for  giving  way  to  a 
mood  which  means  so  little  to  you. 

But  when,  saddened,  I  try  to  move  away, 
you  again  offer  me  your  mouth  as  a  friendly 
almsgiving.  .  .  .  The  letter,  the  barren  letter 
I  hold  it  to  my  heart.  I  leave  my  house  and 
go  into  the  deepest  part  of  the  wood  till  I  find 
a  place  solitary  enough  to  lie  down  in.  The 
letter  has  filled  me  with  a  joy  that  resembles 

lOI 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

the  pungent  fragrance  of  the  pine  needles  car- 
peting the  ground. 

I  open  my  letter,  contemplate  the  two  un- 
written sides,  and  read  once  more  the  written 
sheets.  ...  I  begin  a  deliberate  juggle  with 
the  words;  I  transpose  them  over  and  over 
again,  read  each  letter  separately,  as  if  there 
were  some  sweet  secret  hidden  in  each,  and 
a  caress  in  every  stroke  of  the  pen.  I  can't 
help  thinking  there  must  be  somewhere  be- 
tween the  lines  one  single  little  word  all  for 
myself,  that  concerns  me  only. 

Yet  my  joy  goes  down  with  the  sun;  the 
leaves  cease  to  glow,  and  the  darkness  gathers 
in,  and  I  sit  with  nothing  but  despondency  in 
•my  lap. 

Beloved,  beloved!  how  kind  you  are! 

I  have  lain  awake  all  night  with  these 
words  ringing  in  my  head  like  a  song  through 
the  darkness.     How  kind  you  are! 

You  gave  me  a  whole  evening.  Don't  deny 
it,  for  you  know  I  collect  all  the  minutes  that 

102 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

you  can  spare  from  your  superfluity.  I  glean 
them  together,  as  Ruth  gleaned  wheat  on 
Boaz's  fertile  acres.  I  hadn't  dared  to  hope; 
not  dared,  you  must  believe  me.  I  left  the 
house  alone  with  thoughts  about  you,  but 
without  the  slightest  shadow  of  a  hope  of  see- 
ing you.  Then  when  I  asked  you  implor- 
ingly, "Come  to  the  meeting,"  you  shook  your 
head  and  answered,  "I  can't  manage  it." 

But  while  I  made  my  way  through  the 
lighted,  busy  streets,  my  heart  became  sud- 
denly so  heavy  that  I  felt  I  couldn't  go  on. 
Yet  I  dragged  myself  there. 

Many  people  greeted  me,  and  said  they 
were  glad  to  see  me.  ...  I  stood  in  the 
centre  of  a  little  group.  Then  all  at  once  I 
felt  your  presence.  I  heard  you  coming  .  .  . 
your  step  ...  it  seemed  as  if  you  walked 
straight  up  to  my  very  heart's  door. 

Smiling,  you  held  out  your  hand  to  me  .  .  . 
that  alone  was  enough  to  gild  my  evening,  but 
you  stayed,  with  me,  stayed  with  me.    We  sat 

103 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

together,  we  two.  The  whole  evening  we  sat 
together.  While  others  discussed  what  they 
had  come  together  to  discuss,  I  sat  apart  and 
let  myself  be  enthralled  by  a  happiness  which 
was  almost  more  than  I  could  bear. 

Several  times  you  leaned  close  to  me  to 
whisper  something,  and  we  both  laughed  and 
chatted  about  the  others. 

You  are  very  fond  of  me  as  a  friend  with 
whom  you  can  talk  or  be  silent  at  your  pleas- 
ure. If  I  were  to  cease  to  exist  one  day,  you 
would — if  only  for  a  few  minutes — feel  the 
loss.  Therefore  I  know  that  my  life  has  not 
been  lived  in  vain. 

So,  gradually,  I  have  gained  ground,  step 
by  step,  and  I  don't  worry  you.  That  is  true, 
is  it  not?  I  don't  worry  you?  Rather  than  be 
a  burden  to  you  I  would  give  up  the  joy  that 
lies  for  me  in  seeing  you  now  and  then,  and 
being  sometimes  where  you  are.  It  is  that  1 
long  for  nothing  else,  but  to  be  allowed  to 
love  you. 

104 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

Sometimes  when  my  thoughts  soar  to  the 
cloudy  pinnacles  of  bliss  I  have  asked  myself, 
what  if  the  impossible  were  to  happen,  if  you 
were  to  love  me  I 

The  clouds  float  on  high,  but  when  they 
are  heavy  with  the  moisture  of  earth,  they 
weep  till  they  are  light  again,  and  their  tears 
water  into  fruitfulness  the  woods  and  mead- 
ows, while  they  themselves  sail  on  yonder 
through  the  chill  ether. 

The  clouds  aspire  to  reach  the  height  of 
the  stars  as  my  thoughts  aspire  to  your  love. 
But  they  know  perfectly  well  that  they  are 
striving  after  the  unattainable. 

And  when  my  thoughts  have  tarried  a 
while  up  there  in  the  sky,  they  become 
weighed  down  with  depression  and  float 
softly  earthwards,  where  they  properly  be- 
long, and  my  heart  itself  drops  like  an  anchor 
into  the  deep,  quiet  waters  of  sorrow. 

But  why  do  I  talk  of  sorrow,  I  who  am  the 


105 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

happiest  of  the  happy?  ...  I  didn't  mean 
it,  no,  I  didn't  mean  it  in  the  least. 

But  if  the  impossible  were  to  happen,  the 
impossible  ... 

If  it  could  happen  that  you  would  love  me? 
If  your  glance  told  me  so  just  once. 

I  know  what  I  should  do — yes,  I  know.  I 
should  shut  my  eyes  on  that  glance,  so  as 
never  to  let  it  go  from  me.  I  should  leave 
my  home,  and  my  children,  and  go  away.  I 
should  take  leave  of  life,  and  fall  asleep 
quietly,  oh,  so  quietly,  never  to  awake. 

The  darkness  of  the  grave  would  have  to 
be  round  me,  so  that  not  a  sound  disturbed 
my  happiness. 

To  live  and  know  that  you  loved  me  I  I 
could  not  do  it.  My  strength  would  be  lack- 
ing.    I  can  only  love. 

Henry  said  one  day,  "Don't  touch  any  of 
my  little  bottles."  I  was  staring  at  them  so 
hard.  Each  of  the  little  bottles  contained 
the  peace  of  the  grave.     But  I  must  go  on 

io6 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

living  for  the  sake  of  my  little  children,  for 
Henry's  sake.  And  why  should  I  not  go  on 
living?  I  have  no  reason  to  v^ish  to  do  other- 
wise. Yet  I  am  not  with  them,  though  in 
their  midst.  When  I  move  about  in  my 
rooms,  when  I  talk  to  the  children  and  Henry, 
I  am  not  there.  My  eyes  are  seeking  him, 
my  ears  strain  after  him.  .  .  . 

From  the  first  moment  we  met,  my  beloved, 
you  and  I^I  became  a  stranger  amongst  my 
own  people.  But  no  one  knows  it,  except 
myself.  And  I  feel  that  if  I  was  bound  by  a 
thousand  ties,  I  should  break  them  all,  where 
you,  my  love,  were  concerned. 

I  am  so  very  much  of  a  dreamer  that  it  is 
difficult  for  me  to  write  distinctly  just  what 
the  relations  are  between  us.  Other  thoughts 
perpetually  throng  upon  me,  and  I  have  to 
strive  hard  not  to  pervert  things  or  fabricate. 
And  you  will  understand  that  I  have  not  a  jot 
or  tittle  of  desire  to  fabricate.  .  .  . 

You  must  know  how  poor  I  am,  in  spite  of 
107 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

my  having  home  and  family,  and  how  rich, 
on  the  contrary,  you  make  me,  so  that  eternally 
I  must  love  you.  You  must  be  told  every- 
thing. You  must  be  told  how  very  well  I 
know  you  don't  care  whether  you  are  told  or 
not,  but  I  write  not  for  your  sake,  but  for  the 
sake  of  my  own  love  .  .  .  You  are  so  un- 
speakably good  and  kind.  .  .  . 

There  was  another  evening,  the  evening  of 
the  fete.  I  asked  you  to  give  me  a  moment, 
one  little  moment  for  me  alone,  and  in  the 
middle  of  the  revel  and  music  we  sat  down 
in  a  corner  together,  at  a  little  table.  One 
gets  distinct  in  calculating  when  the  means  are 
so  sparingly  few. 

I  seated  myself  at  an  angle,  from  which  I 
could,  to  my  heart's  content,  and  eye's  satis- 
faction, gaze  right  into  your  soul  without  any 
one  seeing  what  I  was  doing. 

You,  you  looked  at  me  as  if  you  were  glad 
at  my  joy.     You  talked  of  all  sorts  of  things. 

108 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

But  every  word  that  you  let  fall  with  a  con- 
fidential emphasis  as  if  it  were  between  you 
and  me  alone,  was  like  pure  gold — a  treasure 
to  be  added  to  my  heart. 

Not  for  long  were  we  allowed  to  sit  to- 
gether undisturbed.  Other  people  came  up 
to  us  and  jokingly  teased  us.  They  said  that 
we  too  obviously  sought  each  other's  com- 
pany. How  stupid  of  them  to  say  that,  when 
it  is  only  I  who  seek  yours.  And  yet — don't 
be  vexed  with  me — I  liked  them  to  say  it.  So 
I  do. 

And  then  it  was  that  we  came  to  discuss 
goodness,  and  I  said  so  that  every  one  could 
hear,  that  you  were  the  best  and  finest  of  all 
the  men  I  knew.  My  own  husband  stood 
near  and  smiled.  He  was  so  sure  of  me.  .  .  . 
You,  as  well  as  the  others,  declared  that  there 
were  men  who  might  compare  favourably 
with  you.  I  could  not  bear  to  hear  that. 
Softly  in  an  undertone,  I  begged  you  to  con- 

109 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

fess  that  you  were  the  best,  and  you  whis- 
pered, using  *'thou"  for  the  first  time,  'Tor 
thee  I  am  best." 

But  it  is  not  true  that  you  are  only  best 
for  me.  You  are  wonderfully  good — your 
whole  manner  of  life  bears  witness  to  it. 
Every  one  knows  it,  and  every  one  knows  that 
you  suffer.  No  one  can  protect  you  from  its 
being  common  knowledge  that  you  have  suf- 
fered deeply.  Your  heart  lies  in  ruins.  I 
ought  to  learn  from  you  to  forget  myself,  and 
never  to  speak  of  love  which  to  you  can  never 
mean  anything  again.  But  I  don't  speak  in 
words. 

It  was  that  evening  you  clasped  me  close 
to  you,  not  because  you  loved  me,  but  because 
you  were  so  kind.  While  your  lips  sought 
mine  I  asked,  "Then  it  is  true  that  you  love 
me  a  little?"  and  you  answered  in  your  in- 
finite goodness,  "Yes,  it  is  true,  you  are  very, 
very  dear  to  me." 

no 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

But  suppose  I  had  then  said,  "Dq  you  love 
me?"  and  you  in  your  infinite  goodness  had 
replied,  "Yes,  I  love  you."  What  then? 
What  then? 

I  dread  the  moment  when  I  shall  put  this 
question  to  you.  It  lies  in  the  womb  of  the 
future,  waiting  to  reveal  itself.  May  I  have 
the  power  granted  me  never  to  speak,  but  if  I 
do  speak,  may  I  understand  absolutely  that 
your  answer  is  prompted  by  infinite  goodness 
alone.  Yet  between  us  there  is  something 
that  is  all  yours  and  mine.  Something 
greater  than  love,  for  love  aims  at  a  goal,  and 
sooner  or  later  comes  to  a  standstill.  But  that 
which  exists  between  you  and  me  revolves  on 
and  on  like  a  silent  star  in  its  own  distant 
sphere.  Nobody  and  nothing  can  check  its 
progress. 

...  I  am  not  exigent.  Your  love  will,  I 
know,  never  be  my  possession.  I  don't  expect 
it,  and  don't  wish  it.    It  is  my  greatest  happi- 

III 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

ness  that  I  have  met  you  too  late  to  be  one  of 
the  many  who  have  passed  out  of  your  heart 
into  the  cold,  and  everlasting  yearning. 


To-day  is  my  birthday,  and  each  one  is 
emulating  the  other  to  give  me  pleasure. 
The  rooms  are  crammed  with  flowers  and 
presents.  Yet  I  am  not  joyous,  and  the  whole 
affair  seems  very  childish.  How  should  you 
be  able  to  remember  that  to-day  is  my  birth- 
day?    You  who  know  such  heaps  of  people! 

You  will  come  to-night!  I  did  not  tell  you 
intentionally  that  it  was  my  birthday.  .  .  . 
Perhaps  because  I  hoped  that  you  yourself 
would  recollect  the  date.  Last  year  I  met 
you  in  the  street  on  my  birthday,  and  you  told 
me  that  it  was  the  anniversary  of  your  father's 
death,  and  then  I  said  that  it  was  my  birthday. 
You  asked  if  you  might  send  me  some  flowers, 
and  I  said  no.  How  could  I  have  explained 
it,  receiving  flowers  from  you  who  had  never 

112 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

been  in  our  house.  And  now  this  evening 
you  are  coming!  I 

At  first  you  did  not  wish  to  come,  and  it 
was  sweet  of  you  not  to  wish  it.  But  as  you 
don't — don't  love  me  there  is  no  reason  why 
you  should  mind  meeting  my  husband. 

You  are  coming  this  evening.  You  are 
coming  I  Every  time  the  bell  rings  my  heart 
begins  to  beat  faster,  and  every  time  I  am  dis- 
appointed. It  is  like  standing  in  a  bril- 
liantly lighted  room  that  becomes  suddenly 
dark. 

Once  I  received  flowers  from  you  which  I 
never  thanked  you  for.  You  know  nothing 
about  these  flowers.  Shall  I  tell  you  their 
story?     But  you  mustn't  laugh. 

I  always  feel  happy  when  I  think  of  them. 
It  is  almost  as  if  the  flowers  were  standing 
again  in  the  window,  and  I  lying  in  my  hyp- 
notic sleep,  unable  to  open  my  eyes  but  know- 
ing all  the  time  that  your  yellow  orchids, 
trembling  like  a  swarm  of  golden  butterflies 
•  113 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

on  their  delicate  stalks  were  standing  there  in 
the  window.  I  don't  suppose  you  gave  a 
thought  to  whether  they  would  reach  me  be- 
fore or  after  the  operation.  Perhaps  you 
merely  rang  up  a  florist  on  the  telephone  and 
ordered  something  specially  beautiful  to  be 
sent  to  the  Nursing  Home  on  one  or  other  of 
the  days.  And  I  am  modest  with  good  rea- 
son about  questioning  you. 

I  was  in  bed.  No  one  was  with  me.  The 
doctor  had  just  been  here  and — as  he  consid- 
ered his  duty — explained  for  me,  what  my 
dear  Henry  had  been  so  carefully  keep- 
ing from  me,  that  it  was  a  matter  of 
life  and  death.  He  had  very  little  hope. 
But  I  was  not  afraid.  I  lay  there  and 
thought  of  you,  of  Henry  and  the  children, 
and  then  again  of  you.  I  thought  of  how  I 
had  told  you  that  I  had  to  undergo  that  severe 
operation.  I  was  bound  to  tell  you — then,  in 
case  I  died,  I  had  to  say  good-bye  to  you. 

You  tried  to  turn  it  off  with  a  joke,  but  in 
114 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

a  few  minutes  you  grew  grave.  You  asked 
if  I  was  nervous,  and  I  begged  you,  if  mat- 
ters did  not  go  well,  to  visit  my  grave,  just 
once.  Only  once.  It  was  very  childish  of 
me,  but  you  did  not  laugh.  You  merely  said, 
"To  satisfy  you  I  will  promise,  but  I  know 
you  will  live  to  visit  my  grave.  .  .  ." 

I  have  the  power  when  I  like,  of  bringing 
you  before  me  in  the  flesh,  so  very  much  in  the 
flesh,  that  I  at  times  can  hardly  bear  other 
people  to  be  in  the  room.  I  want  to  be  alone 
with  you.  After  I  came  out  of  the  operating 
theatre,  I  was  alone  with  you  every  evening 
and  every  night. 

I  talked  to  you,  I  talked  .  .  .  and  you  were 
silent.  I  never  was  able  to  put  many  words 
into  your  mouth.  But  your  attentive  eyes 
rested  on  me  .  .  .  and  you  were  there. 

When  the  doctor  had  gone,  I  lay  by  myself 
for  a  long  time.  The  nurse  supposed  natu- 
rally that  I  needed  rest  after  my  conversation 
with  the  doctor.     I  thought  of  you.     I  was  so 

115 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

curiously  restless,  a  sort  of  joyous,  expectant 
restlessness.  I  kept  looking  at  the  door,  as  if 
every  minute  I  should  see  you  coming  in. 

I  didn't  really  expect  you.  I  knew,  of 
course,  that  it  was  impossible,  for  many  rea- 
sons. It  would  not  occur  to  you  to  call  on 
me.  You  might  easily  imagine  that  visits  so 
shortly  before  the  operation  would  not  be  per- 
mitted. There  had  been  flowers  in  my  room, 
sent  by  my  friends,  and  many  of  Henry's  pa- 
tients. 

But  they  had  been  taken  away,  because  I 
must  not  be  excited  by  their  scent.  I  lay 
there  and  gazed  at  the  door;  my  heart  began 
to  beat  violently — no,  not  exactly  to  beat,  but 
it  felt  as  if  something  was  entering  it.  You 
must  not  think,  beloved,  that  I  imagined  all 
this  afterwards.  I  felt — I  could  feel  dis- 
tinctly that  some  great  joy  was  on  its  way  to 
me.  I  heard  the  footsteps  approaching  in  my 
heart,  and  then  I  heard  them  outside  on  the 
stairs.     Nurses  and  visitors  were  coming  and 

ii6 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

going  all  day  on  the  stairs,  but,  nevertheless, 
I  sat  up  in  bed  pressing  my  hand  on  my  heart, 
for  I  knew,  I  knew,  that  this  concerned  you. 

My  nurse  came  in  with  a  parcel.  It 
seemed  as  if  she,  too,  understood  that  this  was 
something  which  I  ought  to  see  at  once.  She 
came  quite  close  up  to  me  with  the  box  and, 
smiling,  opened  it  deliberately,  so  deliberately 
that  it  looked  as  if  she  were  teasing  me.  .  .  . 
"Let  me  open  it,"  I  begged,  but  no,  she  in- 
sisted on  doing  it  herself. 

I  felt  how  the  blood  deserted  my  face.  .  .  . 
"Give  them  to  me!"  I  implored  as  if  I  were 
praying  for  my  life.  She  handed  me  the 
long  spray  from  which  the  flowers  hung  like 
gold  sunbeams,  and  fluttered  over  the  white- 
ness of  the  sheet.  I  held  the  spray  in  my 
hand. 

When  she  was  gone,  I  kissed  every  one  of 
the  sensitive  flowers.  And  you  were  with  me. 
All  your  steadfast  calm  was  infused  into  my 
blood.     Now     I     could     die     happy.    The 

117 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

flowers  were  put  in  water  and  placed  in  the 
window.  They  were  to  stay  there  all  night, 
I  said,  and  no  one  objected.  I  had  a  light 
burning  the  whole  night  through,  as  if  I  were 
afraid  of  the  dark.  I  dozed  and  woke,  and 
dozed  and  woke.  The  flowers  did  not  sleep, 
and  they  did  not  fly  away. 

You,  you  were  with  me! 

Even  if  you  never  thought  of  me  at  all  that 
night  you  were  still  with  me.  And,  maybe, 
you  dreamed  of  me.  Men  often  dream  of 
things  that  they  haven't  been  thinking  about. 
And  you  forgot  your  dream  before  you  awoke. 

The  next  morning  when  they  came  to  fetch 
me,  I  besought  so  earnestly  that  my  orchids 
might  stand  beside  the  bed.  I  submitted 
calmly  to  the  anaesthetic.  While  the  mask  was 
being  drawn  over  my  face  I  thought  of  you, 
and  it  seemed  as  if  the  yellow,  dewy  petals 
began  to  dance  over  me. 

Deeply  I  breathed  in  the  fragrance,  and  I 
felt  as  if  the  flowers  filled  the  room.     They 

ii8 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

had  increased  from  a  swarm  to  countless 
swarms,  and  become  a  singing  ocean  of  gold. 
And  in  the  ocean  I  saw  your  eyes.  You  were 
with  me,  even  if  in  thought  you  did  not  ac- 
company me,  yet  you  were  there. 

I  woke  up  and  my  gaze  met  yours.  My 
eyes  were  too  tired  to  see  much.  Yet  I  saw 
the  yellow  flowers  swaying  on  their  stalks. 
They  had  come  back.  They  had,  with  their 
loving  souls,  borne  me  company  at  the  time, 
and  now  they  had  come  back.  Close  to  my 
eyes  they  seemed  to  be  perpetually  singing 
and  making  music.    Yes,  you  were  with  me. 

When  the  pain  was  most  acute  it  was  just  as 
if  they  flew  away,  and  dispersed  at  the  sound 
of  my  groans.  I  quite  understood  it.  They 
were  like  you.  You,  too,  hate  the  thought  of 
sickness.  You,  too,  cannot  bear  people  to  be 
ill.  So  I  tried  to  smile  at  them,  and  to  act 
as  if  I  did  not  feel  the  pain. 

.  .  .  Your  flowers  .  ,  .  your  exquisite, 
blessed  flowers  .  .  . 

119 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

fTo-day  is  my  birthday,  and  you  are  com- 
ing, yet  I  am  not  happy. 

All  my  best  friends  are  coming.  I  shall  sit 
at  the  same  table  as  you  I  You  will  sit  on  my 
right  hand,  for  you  are  the  only  one  who 
comes  for  the  first  time.  It  is  not  wrong,  it 
cannot  be  wrong.  But  if  it  is  wrong,  then 
punish  me,  let  me  suffer  for  it;  I  am  ready. 

I  said  that  I  must  rest  before  the  guests  ar- 
rive. I  must  be  alone  for  a  little  to  collect 
myself  for  the  joy  that  is  greater  than  joy. 

For  my  joy  is  more  than  bliss.  There  is 
nothing  so  great,  there  cannot  be  anything 
greater  than  my  joy. 

The  flowers  are  risen  from  the  dead.  The 
yellow  butterfly  blossoms. 

I  almost  wish  it  was  over.  I  don't  know 
myself  what  it  is,  but  I  wish  it  was  over. 

That,  I  wish  over,  and  I  don't  know  what 
it  is.     I  see  something  beyond  the  barrier, 

120 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

and  I  don't  see  it.  It  is  not  death,  but  there 
is  something  that  hurts  more  than  death. 

And  the  evening  was  the  happiest  of  my 
life. 

Perhaps  it  is  nothing  at  all.  Perhaps  it 
is  only  my  heart  breaking  for  happiness,  but 
can  it  hurt  so  much  when  one's  heart  breaks 
for  happiness? 

It  was  at  the  moment  when  you  went  out 
at  the  door.  Magna  Wellmann  turned  her 
head  and  said,  "That  was  the  evening  of  the 
year,"  and  you  nodded.  Then  was  it.  It 
felt  as  if  all  my  joy  had  suddenly  been 
hemmed  up  in  a  coffin  and  couldn't  breathe. 
Henry  asked,  "Are  you  ill,  you  look  so 
strange,  and  you  have  been  beaming  the 
whole  evening  as  if  you  had  light  inside 
you.  .  .  ."  That  was  true.  I  had  light,  yes, 
light  burning  within  me,  and  now  it  is  ex- 
tinguished. 

I  must  gather  myself  together.  I  must 
cherish  and  hoard  m.y  happy  evening.     It  is 

121 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

wrong  to  think  such  things,  but  I  am  glad  that 
Henry  had  to  read  the  treatise  this  evening. 
I  mean  .  .  . 

You  led  me  to  the  table.  You  sat  on  my 
right,  and  you  were  so  calm.  You  are  always 
so  calm.  Why  should  you  not  be  calm,  you 
are  not  in  love. 

You  invited  me  to  drink,  and  I  who  never 
drink  wine,  drank  with  you,  only  a  sip.  It 
was  ...  no,  I  cannot  speak  of  it.  But  now 
I  understand  that  clergymen  really  believe  it 
when  they  say,  "This  is  the  body  and  blood  of 
Christ." 

No  one  could  read  my  thoughts. 

Now  I  know  what  it  is  that  I  have  lacked 
hitherto,  and  I  am  glad  that  I  have  lacked  it. 

You  made  a  speech  in  my  honour.  It  was 
so  natural  that  you  should.  You  led  me  to 
the  table,  and  it  was  my  birthday.  For  me  it 
was  a  sacred  miracle.  The  words  you  spoke 
have  gone  to  sleep  in  my  heart.    When  I  die 

122 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

one  day  in  my  coffin,  and  my  children  weep 
over  me,  they  will  arise  and  whisper  and  sing 
as  your  yellow  flowers  sang  when  I  was  ill. 

I  hold  so  fast  to  my  happiness.  But  my 
hands  are  weak,  and  it  slips  through  them 
like  running  sand. 

The  hours  go  as  they  came. 

Why  do  you  rend  my  dream  in  twain? 
Why  do  you  thrust  a  knife  in  my  heart?  I 
have  never  thought  of  being  your  mistress.  I 
only  grant  you  every  delight  there  is.  But  why 
in  this  night,  in  this  night,  when  I  woke  and 
clung  to  my  happiness!  When  Magna  Well- 
mann  telephoned  me  to-day,  I  knew  every- 
thing. She  said  nothing  and  I  asked  no 
questions. 

My  yellow  orchids  hang  on  their  stalks  like 
dead  butterflies.  I  have  forgotten  to  give 
them  water. 

Forgive  me  I  I  am  not.  I  won't  be  like 
this,  and  now  it  is  over.  It  hurts  no  longer. 
I  am  well,  like  the  little  boy  who  was  run 

123 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

over  the  day  before  yesterday.  He  cried  and 
moaned  that  he  was  going  to  die,  and  all  the 
time  was  quite  unhurt. 

You  walked  over  my  heart,  and  I  thought 
it  must  die,  but  there  is  nothing  the  matter 
with  it. 

It  is  months  since  I  wrote  to  you  last;  I 
simply  felt  I  couldn't.  I  have  been  like  one 
scared.  Why  do  people  speak  so  often  without 
thinking?  One  lets  fall  a  word  quite  indif- 
ferently, that  stabs  the  heart  of  another  like  a 
poisoned  arrow.  I  have  been  half  distracted 
by  anxiety.  I  have  listened  to  all  the  gossip. 
I  am  sick  from  disquietude.  My  youngest 
child  has  been  ill,  days  and  nights.  I  have 
watched  beside  him,  expecting  every  hour  that 
death  would  come,  and  yet  in  the  middle  of 
my  fear  of  death  my  thoughts  have  been  in- 
cessantly with  you. 

I  wouldn't  believe  it.  .  .  .  But  if  it  is  true. 
.  .  .  Beloved,  I  am  so  saddened,  I  don't  know 

124 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

whether  I  ought  to  tell  you  why,  or  whether 
you  would  tolerate  my  intruding  into  the 
habits  of  your  daily  life.  But  I  am  not  only 
depressed,  for  if  that  was  all  I  could  bear  it 
in  silence.  No,  I  am  frightened,  frightened, 
frightened.     I  cannot  sleep  for  anxiety. 

You  wrote  last  year  to  tell  me  yourself  that 
your  doctor  had  forbidden  you  to  resort  to 
the  strong  remedy  which  had  become  a  neces- 
sity to  you ;  that  you  were  obeying,  but  suffer- 
ing horrible  pain  in  consequence.  That  first 
awakened  my  anxiety.  Many,  many  times  I 
felt  as  if  I  were  running  my  head  against  the 
blank  wall  which  separates  life  from  death. 
.  .  .  And  yet,  it  seemed  to  me  that  there  was 
strength  in  the  touch  of  your  hands,  strength 
that  could  grapple  with  any  illness,  strength 
in  your  hands,  your  glance,  your  smile.  Then 
one  day  something  happened  that  it  took 
weeks  to  get  out  of  my  head.  I  sat  with  you 
and  between  us  was  built  the  usual  bridge  of 
kindness  and  confidence.    Your  smile  came 

125 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

over  the  bridge  and  met  mine.  We  played 
with  words  as  children  in  a  meadow  play  with 
flowers.  Your  hand  lay  on  mine  so  firmly  and 
tenderly.  I  grasped  at  that  moment  why  men 
honour  so  much  the  idea  of  a  foundation  stone. 
I  felt  my  hand,  too,  was  the  corner-stone  in 
an  eternal  building.  So  proud  was  I  that 
your  hand  rested  on  mine,  so  sure,  firmly  and 
tenderly,  and  then  suddenly,  with  such  ter- 
rible suddenness,  that  my  heart  nearly  stopped 
beating,  your  smile  froze  and  died;  your  eyes 
became  vacant,  glazed;  your  face  was  not  only 
strange — would  it  had  only  been  that — it  was 
so  changed  that  you  wouldn't  have  recognised 
it  yourself  in  the  looking-glass. 

In  that  moment — I  can't  say  whether  they 
were  moments  or  minutes — you  were  not  mas- 
ter of  your  body,  neither  were  you  ruler  of 
your  soul.  And  then  you  came  to  yourself. 
But  I  left  you  and  cried.  My  tears  were  cold 
and  made  me  freeze.  Soon  after  I  had  to  go 
away  on  a  journey.     Beloved,  beloved,  how 

126 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

full  of  pain  love  is  I  Every  day,  every  hour 
when  I  strolled  in  the  garden  among  my 
flowers  which  I  planted  there  myself,  which 
stand  there  mysteriously  waiting  and  watch- 
ing for  your  coming,  I  saw  before  me  a 
shadow  that  proceeded  from  my  own  dis- 
traught mind  .  .  .  your  dear  face  with  the 
relaxed  expression,  and  the  glazed,  fixed 
eye. 

The  pain  which  I  experienced  then  has  been 
carried  about  in  my  heart  for  years,  and  was 
day  by  day  increased  and  nourished  by  my 
anxiety. 

But  then  your  letters  came,  like  stars  drop- 
ping from  the  sky  in  the  still,  dark  night  .  .  . 
and  once  more  I  gained  strength  and  courage 
to  look  life  in  the  face.  Life — that  is  what 
you  are  for  me. 

I  could  fancy  every  one  dying  round  me, 
even  my  own  darling  children,  all  that  was 
near  and  dear  to  me;  all  that  peoples  the  earth, 
and  I  could  fancy  the  houses  falling,  day  and 

127 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

night  ceasing — but  I  cannot  picture  life  with- 
out you. 

I  cannot,  and  I  will  not.  ... 

The  summer  passed,  and  with  the  falling 
leaves  I  returned  to  your  neighbourhood. 
You  were,  to  all  appearances  the  same,  only 
rather  paler,  rather  softer  in  your  manner. 
Your  hands  were  the  same,  your  lips  sought 
mine.  I  asked  you  no  questions.  Dare  any 
one  call  to  the  man  walking  on  a  rope  over 
the  abyss,  whether  he  feels  giddy?  I  asked 
you  nothing.  But  others  talked  about  you  to 
me.  And  all,  all  said  the  same.  Don't  you 
see  how  changed  he  is?  And  they  spoke  of 
the  strong  remedy  that  had  become  indispen- 
sable to  you,  of  the  remedy  by  the  help  of 
which  you  maintain  your  mask  of  mental 
equilibrium,  a  mask  through  whose  holes  your 
own  tormented  soul  stares  out  into  vacancy. 

Now  I  have  come  to  it.  I  have  come  to 
it.     Please  do  not  be  angry,  or  hurt,  but  let 

128 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

me  say  what  I  can  no  longer  carry  about  with 
me  unsaid.  Try  if  you  cannot,  slowly  and  by 
degrees,  break  yourself  of  the  habit  of  resort- 
ing to  means  which,  instead  of  strengthening, 
undermine  your  health.  In  the  name  of  my 
love  I  ask  you  to  do  this,  and  you  must  not 
think  that  I  ask  for  my  sake  alone.  Then  if  it 
happened  that  I  was  going  to  die,  and  knew 
that  I  was  going  to  die  to-day,  so  that  I  should 
never  see  you,  or  hear  your  voice  again,  I 
should  still  make  the  same  request.  Why  will 
you  be  kind  to  every  one  but  to  yourself?  A 
doctor  said  to  me  about  you —  No,  those  are 
words  that  may  not  be  repeated.  .  .  . 

Now  say  with  a  smile  that  I  am  conjuring 
up  bogies,  that  my  feelings  have  got  the  bet- 
ter of  me,  and  perhaps  you  are  right,  but, 
beloved,  death  is  not  the  worst.  Do  you  un- 
derstand me  now? 

I  sit  here  and  write  in  the  bright  sunshine. 
My  children  play  round  my  skirts,  and  chat- 
ter and  ask  me  why  I  am  crying.  .  .  . 
9  129 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

Well,  now  it  is  said,  and  now  that  I  have 
said  it,  I  dare  not  let  you  read  what  I  have 
written. 

But  I  will  keep  this  letter  with  the  rest  of 
your  letters,  with  the  letters  which  you  have 
never  received.  Should  the  day  ever  come 
when  I  have  sufficient  courage  you  shall  read 
it. 

Only  this  one,  of  all  the  letters. 


130 


AN  UNSENT  LETTER  FROM  LILI 
ROTHE  TO  PROFESSOR  ROTHE. 

HENRY,  I  had  on  my  mind  to  write  to 
you  and,  for  the  last  time,  ask  you  to 
forgive  me,  but  I  know  that  it 
is  no  use.  Perhaps  your  forgiveness  could 
do  me  no  good  now.  It  is  too  late.  I  have 
suffered  so  much.  I  cannot  bear  more.  But 
this  letter  contains  nothing  but  the  truth,  and 
it  is  the  last  letter  that  I  shall  write. 

Henry,  I  have  never  denied  my  love  for 
you.  I  have  never  forgotten  you,  and  never 
deceived  you.  If  I  am  to  die  now,  because 
I  long  for  the  sleep,  which  while  I  live,  can- 
not mercifully  be  granted  to  me,  you  must 
believe  my  poor  last  words. 

I  don't  know  whither  I  am  going,  but  even 
if  I  knew  for  certain  that  I  should  reach  the 
open  gates  of  Paradise,  I  could  not  cross  the 

131 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

threshold.  So  long  as  you  had  not  forgiven 
me  in  your  heart,  eternal  peace  would  not  en- 
compass me.  And  if  I  knew,  he  for  whose 
sake  I  have  caused  you  such  great  trouble  that 
it  casts  a  shadow  behind  and  dims  all  that  was 
once  radiant  and  happy,  if  I  knew  that  he  was 
standing  ready  to  receive  me  with  those  words 
which  up  till  this  hour  I  have  never  heard 
him  utter,  "Welcome,  my  beloved,"  it  would 
be  impossible  for  me  to  follow  him  into  ever- 
lasting bliss..  Consciousness  of  guilt  would 
prevent  it. 

In  the  years  when  I  loved  you  alone,  I 
was  happy;  when  he  came  into  my  life  and  I 
loved  you  both,  my  happiness  increased  with 
my  love,  and  I  did  not  feel  guilty.  I  was  so 
unspeakably  happy.  I  loved  you,  and  I  loved 
him.  You  are  a  doctor,  and  when  women 
are  ill  you  can  make  them  well,  but  for 
my  sickness  you  had  no  panacea  to  pre- 
scribe. 

And  I  cannot  do  what  you  desire  of  me; 
132 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

I  cannot  say  that  my  love  for  him  is  dead. 
Love  cannot  die,  when  once  it  has  lived. 

Henry,  when  you  took  me  back,  I  entreated 
you  to  ask  me  no  questions,  and  you  asked 
none.  But  your  eyes  asked  and  the  wails 
asked,  and  everything  round  me  asked  ques- 
tions. I  do  not  wish  to  have  any  more  secrets 
from  you.  Yet  you  never  can  understand 
what  I  am  now  going  to  say. 

He  did  not  know  me  when  I  came  to  him, 
and  he  died  without  having  recognised  me. 
But  it  made  me  happy  to  be  with  him.  When 
the  others  were  asleep,  and  it  was  all  quiet,  I 
heard  him  mention  a  name.  Not  my  name. 
He  did  not  love  me,  you  see.  Every  time  he 
mentioned  that  other  name  I  felt  I  was  expiat- 
ing some  of  my  guilt  towards  you.  I  sat 
and  listened,  the  nights  were  so  long,  but  my 
name  never  came.  The  name  of  the  one  he 
loved,  the  names  of  others,  but  mine  never. 

One  night  I  fell  asleep  and  dreamed  that 
he  called   me.     I   awoke,  and  he  lay  dead. 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

And  now  I  shall  never  find  out  whether  that 
was  only  a  dream  or  something  more. 

I  have  thought  so  much  over  the  question 
whether  other  women  are  the  same  as  I  am. 
Were  I  strong  enough  I  would  go  about  and 
look  till  I  found  one  who  could  tell  me  truth- 
fully that  she  had  loved  two  men,  loved  both 
with  her  whole  heart  and  soul.  I  would  then 
beg  her  to  go  to  you  and  explain  how  that 
is  something  one  cannot  help,  cannot  fight 
against,  and  cannot  kill. 


134 


MY  nun  has  espoused  a  husband,  and  I 
have  been  to  call  on  the  young  cou- 
ple.    He  has  only  one  eye,  is  super- 
annuated, and  has  warts  in  his  ears.     He  is  a 
hod  carrier.     When  she  contemplates  him  she 
feels  as  if  heaven  were  opening  before  her. 

She  comes  from  a  good  family,  and  has  had 
a  good  education;  he  is  ignorant  and  stupid, 
but  he  seems  to  appreciate  her  adoration.  I 
had  a  ticket  for  "Lohengrin"  this  evening,  but 
I  am  not  inclined  to  go. 

After  all,  I  can  understand  it.  Once  I 
should  have  thought  it  silly,  but  my  ideas  have 
undergone  a  change.  When  I  reflect  on  it 
there  is  really  only  one  condition  that  can  be 
called  unhappy,  and  that  is  loneliness.  Lone- 
liness on  a  desert  island,  loneliness  in  a  great 
city,  loneliness  in  married  life.  .  .  .  Loneli- 
ness. 

135 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

For  this  reason  all  living  beings  crowd  to- 
gether. The  animals  seek  each  other.  The 
faded  leaves,  as  they  flutter  down  from  the 
trees,  wed  in  the  hour  of  their  destruction. 

She  feels  that  she  has  been  cheated  for  all 
the  years  of  her  convent  life,  has  loved  with- 
out an  object.  She  has  cast  off  her  shackles, 
and  achieved  her  liberty.  The  thought  of  a 
joint  life  with  some  one,  that  she  may  have 
pined  for  vaguely  in  the  convent,  became,  out 
in  the  world,  the  highest  thing  to  aim  at.  In 
her  excessive  modesty  she  humbly  accepted 
the  first  thing  that  offered.  Surely  there  is 
nothing  ridiculous  in  that. 

But  I  am  alone.     I  am  solitary. 


God  in.  heaven,  what  have  I  done?  There 
he  lies  asleep,  as  if  he  were  never  going  to 
wake.  Such  a  little  gnome.  But  I  couldn't 
do  anything  else,  and  behind  all  my  anxiety 
and  fidgetting  I  have  a  feeling  that  for  the 

136 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

first  time  in  my  life  I  have  done  what  is  right. 

For  it  was  not  unpremeditated,  or  was  it? 
Do  I  know?  A  transformation  has  been  go- 
ing on  lately  within  me.  But  when  did  it 
begin,  and  where  will  it  lead  me?  If  I  only 
had  some  one  whom  I  could  consult,  but  there 
is  no  one.  I  have  broken  all  my  old  ties.  I 
stand  quite  alone.  Even  Jeanne.  .  .  .  Jeanne 
must  be  told  as  soon  as  possible,  but,  of  course, 
she  will  think  it  is  nothing  except  one  of  my 
whims  in  which  I  indulge  to  kill  time. 

When  I  ask  myself  deep  down  in  my  heart 
why  I  did  it,  there  is  no  answer,  and,  mean- 
while, the  boy  is  lying  in  my  bed.  I  have 
slept  an  hour  or  two  here  on  this  chair  with- 
out knowing  it.  The  windows  are  wide  open, 
yet  every  minute  I  inhale  a  horrible  smell  of 
spirits  ...  a  little  boy  of  seven!  How  am  I 
to  know  whether  he  is  seven,  five,  or  nine? 

I  must  collect  myself.  This  hour  may  de- 
cide the  whole  course  of  my  life.  I  have  only 
to  hold  the  telephone  receiver  to  my  ear,  and 

137 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

directly  the  house-porter  will  call  in  the  po- 
lice. Before  noon  the  boy  will  be  gone,  and 
I  shall  never  see  him  again. 


Why  should  it  concern  me?  It  would  be 
sheer  folly  if  I  gave  way  to  a  sickly  sentimen- 
tality and  wished  to  keep  this  small  tramp. 
Small  as  he  is,  he  seems  to  be  endowed  with 
every  vice. 

I  feel  as  if  I  had  dreamed  it  all,  and  not 
seen  it  with  my  eyes.  .  .  .  And  it  all  comes  of 
my  freak  of  using  the  subway  under  the  river 
instead  of  taking  a  motor.  What  induced  me 
to  waste  time  in  that  fashioh?  I  who,  of  all 
others,  detest  subterranean  zigzagging? 

Was  it  a  presentment?  Did  I  expect  a  sen- 
sation, and  wish  to  gloat  over  the  sight  of 
roofless  night-wanderers,  who  for  five  cents 
travel  backwards  and  forwards  by  this  route 
all  day?  One's  way  of  living  and  thinking 
is  different  in  New  York  from  what  it  is  in 

138 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

great  European  capitals.  We  don't  follow 
each  other  like  sheep.  We  think  more  for 
ourselves. 

I  felt  so  tired  inwardly  on  the  journey,  so 
utterly  without  an  anchor.  I  tried  to  fall 
asleep  before  we  reached  the  river  to  escape 
hearing  the  ghastly  rushing  sound  in  the  air 
behind.  The  boy  had  seen  me  at  once.  I  be- 
lieve I  inspired  him  with  a  certain  awe.  My 
clothes  probably  were  too  smart  for  him. 

He  hurled  himself  past  me  without  calling 
out  rude  words,  or  making  grimaces.  I  could 
not  take  my  eyes  off  him.  At  first  I  thought 
it  was  one  of  the  dwarfs  out  of  the  Hippo- 
drome, and  I  squirmed  with  disgust.  Then 
I  saw  that  it  was  a  child.  A  child  sick  with 
a  fever  which  his  senses  could  not  master.  I, 
like  the  other  passengers,  thought  him  mad, 
till  we  grasped  what  was  the  matter  with 
him. 

He  jumped  on  ladies'  laps,  and  spat  in  their 
faces;   he   kicked   gentlemen's   legs  violently 

139 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

with  his  heels.  When  the  guard  caught  hold 
of  his  wrists  and  commanded  him  to  be  quiet, 
he  bit  the  man  so  hard  he  was  obliged  to  let 
him  go.  At  the  next  station  he  was  ejected. 
But  directly  the  train  was  in  motion  again,  he 
swung  himself  on  to  the  car,  and  this  process 
was  repeated  at  every  station.  No  one  knew 
how  to  cope  with  him ;  no  one  knew  where  he 
came  from,  or  to  whom  he  belonged.  Sud- 
denly he  began  to  sing,  what,  I  couldn't  under- 
stand, but  from  the  expression  on  the  faces  of 
the  men  present,  and  from  his  own  gestures, 
I  gathered  that  it  was  something  indecent. 

How  shall  I  describe  my  feelings?  Were 
they  prompted  by  horror,  repulsion,  or  com- 
passion? I  must  try  to  analyse  them  clearly. 
...  I  felt  as  if  I  had  brought  this  wretched 
creature  into  the  world,  as  if  I  were  respon- 
sible for  him.  I  experienced  a  mother's 
agony  and  a  mother's  boundless  tenderness. 

Directly  it  became  plain  to  me  that  the 
child  was   not  speaking  in   the  delirium  of 

140 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

fever,  but  of  drunkenness,  I  had  to  bite  my 
lips  till  they  bled,  so  as  not  to  cry  out.  Then 
the  boy  came  to  me,  and  threw  himself  across 
my  lap.  There  he  stayed,  nestling  his  head 
against  me,  and  went  to  sleep. 

*       * 

Were  I  to  act  now  sensibly  and  as  common 
reason  demanded,  I  should  send  the  child 
back  whence  he  came,  though  I  don't  know  in 
the  least  where  that  is.  .  .  .  The  child  who 
has  awakened  the  most  sacred  feeling  in  my 
poor,  withered  heart.  .  .  .  The  child  who  is 
to  blame  for  my  having  shed,  for  the  first  time 
in  my  life,  tears  of  joy. 

When  I  offered  to  take  Jeanne's  child,  I 
had  my  reasons  at  my  fingers'  ends,  but  they 
were  not  honourable  ones.  I  wanted  to  start 
for  myself  an  interest  in  life.  I  started  from 
the  hypothesis  that  what  filled  the  lives  of  so 
many  women  might  equally  well  fill  mine.  I 
wanted  to  take  Jeanne's  child,  in  the  same  way 

141 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

as  five  years  before  I  had  taken  her  ...  as 
an  experiment,  a  distraction. 

But  it  was  not  so  to-night.  This  small  boy 
had  kissed  my  hands,  and  I  had  blessed  him. 

I  have  heard  somewhere  of  a  holy  man  who 
met  once  a  little  child  who  was  tired.  He 
lifted  him  on  to  his  shoulders  and  carried  him 
over  a  river,  but  on  the  way  the  child  grew 
and  became  heavier  and  heavier,  while  the 
man  sank  deeper  and  deeper  .  .  .  All  that, 
however,  doesn't  matter. 

I  took  him  home  with  me.  Here  you  can 
do  what  you  like.  My  proceeding  excited  no 
remark.  A  stranger  asked  if  he  should  fetch 
me  a  carriage,  and  we  drove  home. 

I  must,  of  course,  make  inquiries  about  his 
antecedents.  He  says  nothing  himself.  He 
woke  up  when  I  struck  a  light,  but  he  wouldn't 
tell  me  his  name  even.  The  people  in  the 
train  thought  he  was  one  of  those  outcast  chil- 
dren without  parents  who  live  from  hand  to 
mouth   by  selling  newspapers,   and   stealing 

142 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

from  the  banana  carts,  and  who  pass  the  night 
on  the  river's  bank  or  in  empty  wagons. 

I  haven't  succeeded  yet  in  getting  his  boots 
off.  Though  they  have  evidently  once  be- 
longed to  a  grown-up,  they  are  so  tightly  laced 
on  his  little  legs  that  they  can  only  be  moved 
by  cutting.  He  must  have  worn  them  day 
and  night  for  months. 

* 
*       * 

What  will  be  the  end  of  it?  I  daren't 
think,  and  I  daren't  act.  I  keep  saying  to  my- 
self without  ceasing,  the  same  thing,  "Sup- 
pose he  is  taken  away  from  me?"  and  I  seem 
to  see  into  the  future,  his  life  ending  in  crime, 
his  death  taking  place  in  prison. 

I  intend  to  sacrifice  my  own  life  for  this 
child's  .  .  .  but  is  that  sufficient?  Can  that 
avert  his  fate? 

My  beautiful,  beautiful  boyi  He  is  asleep. 
I  have  locked  both  doors  and  sit  with  the  key 
in  my  pocket.     Every  quarter  of  an  hour  I 

143 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

look  in  at  him ;  he  smiles  in  his  sleep  as  only 
innocent  children  smile.  Then  suddenly  he 
clenches  his  little  fists  and  his  mouth  becomes 
so  distorted  and  ugly  that  I  have  to  turn  away. 
What  can  he  be  dreaming  about? 

Help  me,  help  I  To  whom  am  I  praying? 
I,  who  am  without  faith,  and  without  hope. 
But  I  am  not  without  love.  No  longer  with- 
out love ;  for  I  love  this  poor,  miserable  child. 

Could  I  but  give  him  back  his  innocence! 
.  .  .  Has  he  never  been  innocent  like  other 
children?  Was  he  contaminated  from  the 
first  by  the  two  creatures  who  gave  him  life? 
Is  it  in  my  power  to  atone  for  others'  sins 
against  him? 

I  wonder  why  he  tried  to  run  away  to-day? 
Where  did  he  want  to  go,  and  what  was  in  his 
mind?  If  I  had  not  got  him  back,  God 
knows,  I  could  not  have  faced  another  day. 


144 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

I  sat  with  him  on  my  lap,  and  he  looked  up 
at  me  as  if  he  would  ask,  "What  are  you  going 
to  do  with  me?" 

His  childish  gaze  was  so  suspicious  and 
hard.  I  told  him  that  I  wanted  to  be  his 
mother  and  to  live  for  nothing  else  but  to 
make  him  happy.  All  the  time  his  little 
hands  were  feeling  about  to  find  my  pocket. 
I  pretended  not  to  see,  and  smiling  angelic- 
ally, he  plunged  his  hand  after  my  purse,  and 
began  to  fidget  with  it  till  it  opened.  My 
heart  beat  so  that  I  could  hear  it  distinctly 
resound  in  my  ears. 

Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  he  steals?  He 
has  known  what  it  is  to  starve.  But  now  I 
give  him  everything  that  heart  can  desire.  I 
have  bought  him  a  little  purse  of  his  own,  and 
filled  it  with  money.  Yet  still  his  tiny  face 
retains  its  expression  of  desperate  greed  when 
he  sees  me  take  out  money.  When  will  this 
alter? 

And  he  asks  me  if  I  have  bought  him.  Or 
145 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

have  been  given  money  to  keep  him.  He 
does  not  remember  that  blessed,  thousand- 
fold blessed,  night  when  he  took  my  heart  by 
storm,  and  transformed  me  into  a  real  human 
being.  .  .  . 

I  wanted  to  test  him,  so  to-day  I  went  with- 
out lunch,  explaining  to  him  that  I  had  no 
more  money,  but  he  was  to  eat,  I  could  go 
without  it.  He  nodded,  and  without  trou- 
bling about  me  at  all,  ate  up  his  lunch. 


Kelly.  That's  his  name.  Kelly!  or  he 
says  it's  his  name.  He  has  been  with  me  now 
for  six  days,  and  only  to-day  he  told  me  what 
he  was  called.  Well,  it  is  at  least  a  begin- 
ning.    I  am  thankful  for  little. 

I  dare  not  hesitate  any  longer.  If  I  could, 
I  would  travel  ofif  with  him  like  a  thief  with 
his  booty,  even  if  somewhere  a  mother  sat  and 
wept  for  him.  No,  no!  I  wouldn't  rob  a 
mother  of  her  child.     But  I  needn't  be  afraid. 

146 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

Kelly's  whole  bearing  tells  me  that  he  has 
been  for  a  long,  long  time  alone  in  the  world. 
Enquiries  will  be  only  a  matter  of  form,  and 
then  I  can  adopt  him  properly.  He  will  be 
mine  .by  law. 

*  * 

It  is  quite  a  matter  of  indifference  to  me  if 
people  shake  their  heads  at  my  insane  action. 
How  should  they  know  that  Kelly  alone,  only 
this  boy  with  the  vicious  little  face  and  crim- 
inal glance  is  the  source  of  all  my  bliss  and 
riches  in  this  life?  But  it  distresses  me  when 
people  talk  about  it  in  his  presence,  and  I 
cannot  prevent  them  shaking  their  heads. 
Kelly  understands  what  they  mean.  He  seems 
conscious  that  his  brow  is  branded  with  the 
mark  of  Cain. 

* 

*  * 

To-morrow  we  are  going  to  the  Children's 
Court;  I  have  written  to  Mr.  Rander.     He 

147 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

is  said  to  be  one  of  the  cleverest  child-psychol- 
ogists in  America. 

He  has  replied  that  I  need  cherish  no  fears. 
So  long  as  my  love  is  sufficiently  great  .  .  . 
my  love.  .  .  .  Yes,  my  love  is  great  enough 
to  bear  the  strain. 

* 

Why  had  that  to  happen  just  to-day,  when 
I  was  feeling  in  such  good  heart?  It's  only  a 
trifle,  certainly.  He  may  not  have  thought 
what  he  was  doing. 

It's  a  necessity  of  children's  nature  to  be  de- 
structive. They  are  cruel  without  being  con- 
scious of  it.  What,  after  all,  do  I  care  about 
the  stupid  cacti?  I  would  have  made  him  a 
present  of  all  of  them.  But  it  was  the  glance 
of  his!  The  sly,  uncanny  glance  when  I  said, 
"But,  Kelly,  why  have  you  cut  my  flowers  in 
pieces?" 

* 
*       * 

148 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

I  am  doing  it  entirely  on  my  own  respon- 
sibility. I  should  do  it,  even  if  the  whole 
world  cried  out,  **Leave  it  alone,  it  will  prove 
your  ruin  1"  I  should  do  it.  Even  if  I  could 
see  into  the  future,  and  behold  my  boy  a  full- 
fledged  criminal  sentenced  to  death.  ...  I 
consecrate  my  life  to  him,  my  poor,  squan- 
dered life.  But  it  isn't  poor  now.  I  am  rich. 
I  am  a  mother! 

* 

Mr.  Rander  meant  well,  I  daresay,  when  he 
said,  "Don't  do  it.  Take  any  of  them,  only 
not  himl"     And  he  related  what  he  knew. 

As  if  a  single  spoken  phrase  could  dissolve 
the  bond  my  heart  has  entered  into  volun- 
tarily. 

"Born,  double-dyed  criminal.'*  Neverthe- 
less, I  will  educate  myself  to  be  a  worthy 
mother  to  him. 


149 


DEAR  Magna  Wellmann, 
"From  earth  thou  comest,  to  earth 
thou  shalt  return.  .  .  ."  These  words 
of  Scripture  occurred  to  me  when  I  read  your 
letter.  That  is  the  eternal  circle  .  .  .  in  this 
case  the  circle  of  your  family.  Your  grand- 
father was  a  renegade  from  the  calling  of  his 
forefathers  when  he  became  a  townsman. 
Your  father  degenerated,  and  now  you  have 
gone  back  to  the  land. 

Magna,  Magna,  I  admire  you.  Of  course, 
I  am  heart  and  soul  for  the  enterprise.  In 
this  manner  my  money  will  become  a  breath- 
ing, living  entity,  doing  its  own  work,  and 
reaping  its  own  reward.  Don't  talk  about  be- 
ing cautious.  I  am  running  no  risks.  I 
know  what  I  am  about.  Your  lawyer's  letter 
informs  me  in  business  language  that  the  un- 
dertaking is  "sound,"  besides  I  am  not  giving 
the  whole  or  even  half  the  capital. 

150 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

I  need  no  assurances  that  you  will  carry  the 
thing  through.  But  read  before  you  begin 
a  little  book  by  Flaubert.  I  don't  mind  bet- 
ting you  have  never  heard  of  it.  It  is  called, 
"Bouvard  et  Pecuchet."  A  prospective 
agriculturist  can  learn  a  good  deal  from  it. 
It's  splendid  that  Jarl  is  so  keen  on  farming. 
But  you  won't  surely  let  him  put  his  hand  to 
the  plough,  and  work  in  the  fields  from  the 
start,  will  you?  The  boy  is  only  seventeen, 
and  I  hope,  too,  that  his  mother  isn't  going 
to  begin  at  once  digging  turnips  and  milking 
cows.  I  should  not  care  to  set  foot  in  a  cow- 
shed— it's  a  thing  I  have  never  done.  But 
all  the  same  I  shall  enjoy  having  letters  yards 
long  about  all  your  first  experiments  and 
blunders. 

You  mustn't  take  it  too  much  to  heart  that 
Agnete  is  cool  towards  you.  The  poor  child 
has  a  dash  of  prudishness  in  her,  inherited 
from  her  mother  I  When  she  has  children  of 
her  own  she  will  be  different. 

151 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

Your  account  of  the  scandal  was  rich!  Es- 
pecially do  I  like  that  remark  of  a  friend, 
"She  might  at  least  have  had  the  tact  to  say 
that  it  was  an  adopted  child."  I  read  be- 
tween the  lines  that  you  have  not  passed 
through  this  humiliation  without  it's  having 
left  scars  behind.  But,  Magna,  nothing  is  in 
vain.  You  can  afford  to  pay  the  cost  of  your 
happiness.  I  am  reminded  of  a  little  story 
about  you  which  used  to  be  told  in  our  "set." 
It  related  to  the  way  in  which  you  conquered 
Professor  Wellmann's  heart.  You  were  at  a 
party,  and  had  been  so  bored  you  had  spoken 
to  no  one.  There  was  something  to  drink  in 
big,  tall  glasses.  Suddenly  in  an  ebullition 
of  superfluous  strength  you  bit  the  glass  with 
your  teeth  and  bit  a  piece  out  of  it.  Profes- 
sor Wellmann  sat  with  distended  eyes  and 
open  mouth,  and  watched  you. 

And  on  his  way  out  of  the  house  he  re- 
marked to  a  not  very  discreet  friend,  "She,  the 
girl  who  bit  the  glass,  shall  be  my  wife!" 

152 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

The  story  may  or  may  not  be  true,  but  it 
is  characteristic  of  you  all  the  same. 

I  can  see  you  in  hobnail  boots,  and  a  smock, 
tramping  over  the  fields,  superintending  the 
plough  and' the  breeding  of  cattle. 

I  have  very  little  to  tell  about  myself. 
Since  I  linked  my  fate  to  Kelly's  I  live  in  a 
new  world.  Every  day  that  goes  by  I  come 
nearer  to  myself,  but  I  cannot  write  about  it. 
It  is  too  sacred  a  subject.  Troubles  which 
were  unknown  to  me  before  have  taken  up 
their  continued  abode  within  me,  but  joys 
which  were  equally  strange  keep  watch  over 
me  with  drawn  swords.  Magna,  I  ask  you, 
can  the  woman  who  has  brought  her  own 
child  into  the  world  experience  greater  bliss 
and  greater  torment  than  I,  to  whom  my  boy 
was  given  by  chance? 

With  a  thousand  loving  remembrances, 
Your 

Elsie  Lindtner. 


153 


The  White  Villa. 

DEAR  Jeanne, 
As  you  will  see  from  this  heading, 
we  are  now  at  home  again. 
We,  and  at  home  again! 
My  home  is  where  Kelly  is,  and  Denmark 
was  never  his  home.     But  for  his  sake,  I  have 
uprooted  once  more.     I  did  not  think  such 
a  big,  big  town  was  good  for  him.    The  is- 
land here  is  certainly  small  enough. 

Oh,  if  you  could  see  how  it  looks  now!  I 
was  determined  to  be  the  first  with  Kelly  to 
enter  the  house,  since  you  and  I  left  it  to- 
gether, how  many  years  ago? 

The  carpets  were  in  tatters.  The  window 
panes  were  beaten  in,  either  by  the  wind  or 
vagabonds.  Dead  leaves  and  dead  flies  lay 
about  the  floors.  My  beautiful  pieces  of 
furniture   were   mildewed    from    damp  .  .  . 

154 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

one  or  two  of  the  chairs  had  collapsed;  the 
chintz  coverings  were  moth-eaten.  My  bed- 
room— my  ridiculous  bedroom — was  the  most 
deplorable  of  all.  It  must  have  been  struck 
by  lightning,  otherwise  I  don't  understand 
how  the  mirrors  got  smashed,  and  the  rain  and 
snow  lay  congealed  on  my  bed. 

Kelly  laughed,  and  rushed  from  room  to 
room,  and  in  the  end  I  laughed,  too.  Then 
Kelly  got  hold  of  the  mad  idea  that  instead  of 
putting  up  at  the  inn,  we  should  turn  in  here 
the  first  night.  I  half  think  he  contemplated 
a  sort  of  burglarious  attempt  on  the  deserted 
house.  I  yielded,  of  course.  Never  in  my 
life  have  I  seen  any  one  more  industrious  and 
handy  than  this  boy  when  he  likes.  He  ran 
about  pumping  water  and  sweeping  floors, 
and  made  all  straight,  God  knows  how.  Tea 
was  prepared!  ante-diluvian  sugar  and  a  can- 
ister of  Albert  biscuits.  He  ushered  me  into 
the  large  parlour  where  my  piano,  my  poor, 
wretched,  beautiful  piano,  had  been  standing 

155 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

all  these  years,  the  prey  of  wind  and  rain,  till 
it  hasn't  a  sound  left  in  its  body  from 
hoarseness — and  then  he  brought  in  the  tea. 
I  won't  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  it  tasted  clean 
or  nice,  and  the  biscuits  were  musty,  but 
Kelly's  hand  had  prepared  it. 

And  we  slept  together  in  the  same  bed,  in 
your  bed,  Jeanne,  in  yours!  It  was  the  only 
one  in  which  the  blankets  were  dry.  I 
wanted  to  lie  on  a  sofa  with  a  rug,  but  Kelly 
would  cuddle  up  beside  me. 

Jeanne,  I — really  I,  your  fond,  old  travel- 
ling companion,  am  now  once  more  "at 
home,"  and  I  lay  awake  the  whole  night 
thinking  over  my  happiness. 

Kelly  slept  in  my  arm,  and  my  arm,  of 
course,  went  to  sleep,  but  no  other  part  of  me 
slept  .  .  .  and  Kelly  woke  with  my  arm 
round  him. 

Then  we  went  to  ''The  Jug,"  and  put  up 
there  for  a  fortnight  till  the  whole  place  was 
made  habitable.     I  have  no  Jeanne — I  do  my 

156 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

own  hair,  and  make  myself  beautiful  for  my 
boy.  Alack!  it  is  hard  work  to  inspire  him 
with  any  desire  to  make  himself  presentable. 

I  am  thinking  of  finding  a  tutor  for  him. 
He  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  run  wild  and 
devour  sensational  American  novelettes — of 
which  there  are  none  in  Denmark — and  re- 
main ignorant  of  all  other  subjects. 

Forgive  me,  Jeanne,  but  I  have  only  one 
thought,  and  that  is  Kelly.  He  fills  my  life 
at  all  points,  so  that  everything  else  now  has 
to  give  way  to  him. 

He  has  a  craze  for  collecting  snails  and 
slugs,  which  he  brings  into  the  house  and  lets 
crawl  about  on  the  white  window-sills.  I 
must  own  it  makes  a  horrible  mess,  but  Kelly 
may  do  anything.  Only  I  draw  the  line  at 
helping  him  to  collect  his  snails,  for,  much 
as  I  should  like  to  oblige  him,  it  is  too  dis- 
gusting. 

Now  in  exchange  for  these  confidences,  tell 
me  all  your  news.     It  was  indeed  a  piece  of 

157 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

good  fortune  that  Malthe's  design  took  the 
prize.  And  in  Paris,  tool  You  will,  I  sup- 
pose, stay  there  the  two  years.  Or  are  you 
still  the  incorrigible  nomads  who  prefer  to 
travel  about  with  your  houses  on  your  backs, 
with  your  trunks  and  perambulator — to 
settling  down  quietly  in  a  refined,  comfort- 
able home.  Don't  work  yourself  to  shreds, 
Jeanne.  Remember  that  life  is  long,  and  that 
you  mustn't  grow  old  and  ugly.  I  concluded 
that  you  are  doing  everything  in  your  power 
fairly  to  spoil  your  excellent  husband.  You 
go  to  market.  You  pack  the  boxes,  take  the 
tickets,  and  accompany  your  husband  to  the 
museums  where  you  make  drawings  for  him, 
and  you  look  after  the  children.  Jeanne! 
Jeanne!  take  thought  for  your  hair,  and  be 
careful  of  your  hands. 

And  don't  forget  your  happy  Aom^-flown 
friend, 

Elsie  Lindtner. 


158 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

Dear  Good  Magna, 

That  this  notion  should  have  occurred  to 
you,  and  that  you  should  have  the  courage  to 
carry  it  out — .  But  ought  I  to  offer  up  this 
sacrifice  to  you,  and  can  I  relinquish  Kelly? 
The  last  few  nights  have  been  long  and  sleep- 
less; only  when  dawn  begins  to  glimmer  can 
I  bring  my  confused  thoughts  into  any  order, 
and  then  it  seems  as  if  I  had  found  a  solution 
which  is  the  right  one.  I  fall  asleep,  and 
when  I  wake  up  again,  everything  is  as  un- 
settled as  ever. 

I  don't  know  my  way  in  or  out.  Magna, 
it's  not  selfishness  which  makes  me  dread  let- 
ting Kelly  out  of  my  hands — the  day  does  not 
seem  far  off  when  I  shall  be  forced  to  live  un- 
der another  roof  from  that  which  shelters  him, 
and  that  is  why  I  don't  want  to  die. 

My  every  thought  is  dedicated  to  him  for 
whom  and  with  whom  I  now  live,  and  so  I 
will  continue  to  live  without  complaint  so 

159 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

long  as  life  is  granted  me.  I  have  looked  it 
all  in  the  face,  and  have  recoiled,  shuddering, 
at  the  petrifying  horror  of  impossibilities,  but 
I  have  made  my  resolve.  So  long  as  I  in- 
habit the  earth  Kelly  has  a  human  being  who 
stands  in  the  place  of  mother  to  him. 

I  am  not  afraid  to  make  any  sacrifices.  I 
shrink  only  from  the  thought  of  shirking  the 
responsibility.  From  the  day  Kelly  came 
into  my  life  I  have  made  myself  answerable 
for  his  actions  and  conduct.  Would  it  not  be 
cowardice  and  treachery  if  I  now  said,  "The 
yoke  has  become  too  burdensome,  now  I  will 
shunt  it  on  to  the  shoulders  of  another"? 

And  yet,  Magna,  your  plan  seems  to  me  the 
one  possibility  of  salvation. 

Before  I  express  my  hearty  thanks,  and  con- 
fide my  boy  to  your  care,  I  must  tell  you  some- 
thing which  I  have  been  compelled  to  keep  to 
myself  till  now.  Kelly  has  before  been  taken 
care  of  by  others.  By  force  of  circumstances. 
He  tried — remember  he  was  only  nine  years 

1 60 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

old — to  burn  me.  Of  course  no  one  sus- 
pected him,  otherwise  the  police  would 
not  have  been  asked  to  investigate  the  affair, 
but  then  it  was  brought  to  light,  and  he  was 
taken  away  from  me.  I  could  have  mur- 
dered them  for  taking  him.  ...  It  is  hard, 
even  now,  years  after,  to  talk  about  it.  My 
one  idea  was  to  find  a  means  of  getting  him 
back.  In  America  everything  possible  is 
done  to  save  children  whose  feet  are  set  on 
the  downward  path  to  crime.  And  it  is  done 
with  a  tenderness  and  love  which  is  marvel- 
lous, but  I  didn't  know  it.  I  thought  of  what 
I  had  read  in  the  papers  at  home  about  re- 
formatories for  children,  about  floggings  and 
starvation,  and  lockings-up  in  dark  cellars. 
I  was  ready  to  help  Kelly  to  escape  till  the 
first  time  that  they  gave  me  permission  to  visit 
him. 

There  was  no  wall   round  the  institution, 
not    even    a    railing.     The    main    building 
abutted  on  the  high  road,  and  from  there  you 
"  i6i 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

could  see  the  heaps  of  smaller  red  houses  re- 
sembling a  town  of  villas. 

As  I  came  up  to  the  inspector's  dwelling,  I 
was  almost  run  down  by  a  crowd  of  boys 
headed  by  a  small  negro,  who  were  having  a 
race. 

Just  as  I  entered  the  door,  I  heard  an  out- 
cry which  made  my  heart  stand  still.  I 
thought  it  was  one  of  the  boys  being  punished. 
But  the  inspector  showed  me  from  the  win- 
dow what  the  noise  meant.  The  boys  were 
playing  at  fire,  and  at  that  moment  they  were 
letting  the  hose  play  on  the  inspector's  house. 
My  little  Kelly — in  oilskins  and  a  helmet  on 
his  head — held  the  hose. 

And  I  was  told  that  of  the  six  hundred  boys 
who  are  in  the  reformatory  many  of  them  on 
account  of  gross  misconduct,  for  which  but 
for  their  tender  years,  they  would  have  been 
sentenced  to  a  long  period  of  imprisonment, 
not  a  single  one  had  been  guilty  of  doing  any- 
thing wrong  during  his  detention  here.     Pun- 

162 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

ishments  such  as  thrashing  and  being  put  on 
bread  and  water  and  under  arrest,  simply  do 
not  exist.  The  boys  live  in  their  little  villas, 
twelve  in  a  batch,  under  the  supervision  of 
a  pair  of  foster-parents.  The  only  punish- 
ment is  that  a  boy  who  has  been  disobedient  or 
lazy  gets  no  cake  at  five  o'clock  tea,  and  is  not 
given  permission  to  sit  with  the  others  at  the 
large  flower-decked  table,  but  has  to  sit  alone 
at  a  small  table.  And  he  mayn't  lie  before 
the  fire  at  dusk  and  listen  to  fairy-tales. 

No  mother  could  have  had  more  delight- 
ful letters  from  her  child  than  I  had  from 
Kelly  during  that  year.  If  I  had  only  been 
as  wise  then  as  I  am  now,  I  should  have  let 
him  stay  there  as  long  as  the  inspector  would 
have  kept  him. 

All  the  small  "prisoners"  were  taught  in 
succession  various  industries  which  they 
might  choose  themselves.  I  saw  them  bak- 
ing, ironing,  washing,  carving,  carpentering, 
binding  books,  making  clothes,  and  toys,  and 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

I  saw  them  planting  trees,  ploughing,  and. 
Magna,  I  saw  them  milking  cows.  But  I  was 
a  foolish  mother.  I  didn't  want  my  boy 
brought  up  to  a  trade ;  I  imagined  it  was  my 
duty  to  develop  his  great  gifts  in  a  different 
direction. 

So  after  a  year  he  was  sent  back  to  me. 
But  the  inspector  warned  me  that  there  would 
be  a  lapse.  In  two  months  it  came.  Kelly 
disappeared.  I  tore  about  like  a  maniac  hunt- 
ing for  him  everywhere.  I  don't  believe 
there  was  a  beer-cellar,  a  common  lodging- 
house,  or  a  thieves'  kitchen  that  I  didn't 
search.  He  was  traced  through  the  scar  on 
his  forehead,  and  I  recovered  him.  But 
how? 

The  Kelly  who  for  twelve  months  had  been 
living  a  model  life  among  six  hundred  little 
abandoned  chaps,  had  plotted  with  a  group 
of  homeless  playmates  to  commit  a  crime  so 
diabolical  and  remorseless  that  at  first  I  re- 
fused to  believe  his  brain  could  have  hatched 

164 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

it.  By  the  train  between  Philadelphia  and 
New  York  travels  every  day  a  crowd  of  mil- 
lionaires who  come  to  do  their  business  on  the 
Stock  Exchange.  The  other  boys  were, 
through  all  sorts  of  tricks,  to  distract  the  at- 
tention of  the  signalman  while  Kelly  was  to 
switch  on  the  signals  so  that  another  train 
would  come  into  collision  with  the  train  from 
Philadelphia.  After  the  collision  they  meant 
to  plunder  the  dead  bodies! 

It's  true,  Magna;  now  say,  no!  you  dare  not 
take  Kelly  under  your  roof  to  associate  with 
Oluf.  I  can't  help  it,  it  was  my  duty  to  tell 
you  all.  My  friend.  Judge  Rander,  in  Chil- 
dren's Court,  helped  me  in  every  way.  He 
procured  for  me  leave  to  travel  with  Kelly 
out  of  the  country  on  a  verbal  and  written 
oath  that  I  would  never  bring  him  back. 
That  is  why  I  lived  two  years,  summer  and 
winter,  in  my  White  Villa  with  Kelly  and  a 
tutor.  I  was  afraid  to  let  him  come  near  the 
town,  and  yet  the  child  needed  companions. 

165 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

So  at  last  I  ventured  to  migrate  to  a  town, 
with  the  result  that  Kelly  in  two  years  w^as  ex- 
pelled from  three  schools.  Can  you  still  have 
the  courage,  Magna,  to  let  the  innocent  child, 
offspring  of  your  heart,  become  Kelly's  play- 
fellow? And  if  you  are  so  courageous,  how 
shall  I  be  able  to  exonerate  myself  if  you 
come  to  me  one  day  and  say,  "Kelly  has  cor- 
rupted my  boy"? 

I  put  the  words  into  your  mouth,  Magna. 

Say  no,  while  there  is  still  time.  You  are 
strong,  stronger  than  any  other  woman  I 
know,  since  you  have  found  yourself  again 
through  strenuous  exertion  and  labour.  But 
there  are  powers  that  the  strongest  cannot  con- 
quer. 

Behind  my  fears  about  your  saying  yes,  lies 
the  burning  wish  that  you  will,  but  how  shall 
I  ever  find  words  to  thank  you? 

Of  course,  I  realise  what  it  will  mean  if 
Kelly  from  now  onwards  takes  up  his  abode 
with   you,   and   directly  after  his   confirma- 

i66 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

tion  leaves  off  school.  It's  not  what  Kelly  is 
to  be,  but  how  he  becomes  what  he  is,  that  is 
going  to  be  for  me  the  main  question.  I  fold 
my  hands  in  my  lap,  and  I  confess  my  power- 
lessness. 

Make  Kelly  a  man.  Make  Kelly  a  good 
man. 

You  will  understand.  Magna,  that  I  could 
not  say  all  this  if  we  stood  face  to  face. 
While  I  have  been  writing  Kelly  has  been 
several  times  to  the  door.  He  wants  to  know 
what  I  am  doing.  Every  time  I  feel  tempted 
to  lay  down  my  pen  to  enjoy  his  society.  He 
asked  me  the  other  day,  "Mother,  do  you  be- 
lieve that  people's  fate  is  pre-ordained?" 
What  could  he  have  meant  by  it?  I  dared 
not  ask  him.  He  went  on  his  knees,  buried 
his  head  in  my  lap,  and  cried  bitterly. 

Magna,  don't  keep  me  long  in  uncertainty. 
At  least  promise  me  that. 

Your 

Elsie  Lindtner. 
167 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

I  have  begun  to  darn  Kelly's  stockings. 
Why  did  I  never  think  of  it  before? 

He  w^as  w^hitewashing  the  attic  with 
Magna,  and  I  saw  that  one  of  his  stockings 
was  without  a  heel.  I  actually  blushed,  I 
felt  so  ashamed.  The  boy,  of  course,  doesn't 
trouble  about  such  trifles,  and  Magna,  splen- 
did creature,  has  enough  to  do.  I  don't  be- 
lieve she  would  mind  a  bit  going  about  with 
holes  in  her  own  stockings. 

In  the  country  it  doesn't  matter  so  much, 
but  still — 

She  simply  laughed  at  me  when  I  asked  to 
be  allowed  to  look  after  his  clothes,  and  I 
didn't  quite  know  how  to  explain  why  I 
wanted  to  do  it.  But  Magna  is  so  clever,  and 
when  I  was  seated  comfortably  she  brought 
me  out  a  whole  bundle.  She  has  done  the 
same  for  her  own  children.  I  am  convinced 
that  she  would  not  let  any  one  else  darn  Oluf's 
stockings. 

I  don't  find  it  easy.  I  have  quite  forgotten 
1 68 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

the  proper  way  of  doing  it,  which  I  learnt  at 
school.  And  I  haven't  thought  anything 
about  darning  stockings  since. 

But  I  take  no  end  of  trouble,  and  it  is  a 
wonderful  feeling  to  sit  out  here  on  the 
balcony  with  a  whole  pile  of  big,  big  stock- 
ings in  front  of  me — Kelly  has  positively  a 
gigantic  foot.  My  dear  little  balcony.  It's 
to  me  what  an  airship  is  for  young,  impatient 
folks.  I  sit  so  serenely  in  my  charming,  soft 
seat,  between  sweet-peas  and  nasturtiums,  and 
beneath  me  streams  by  the  current  of  life  with 
its  men  and  beasts. 

It  amuses  me  to  see  how  skilfully  Richard's 
eldest  can  drive  an  automobile.  If  only  he 
can  avoid  accidents. 

Richard    himself   is   aging,   but   his   little 

wife  sits  so  upright  in  the  car.     She  wears 

well. 

Since  Richard  caught  sight  of  me  one  day 
169 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

by  chance  he  always  looks  up  and  bows,  and 
then  we  all  bow,  ...  I  overhear  the  lanky 
youth  say,  "Papa,  we  are  passing  your  old 
wife,"  and  then  they  laugh. 

Yes,  I  should  like  to  see  the  home  in  the  old 
Market  Place  once  more.  Probably  I  should 
hardly  recognise  it,  or  perhaps  Richard,  from 
long  habit,  has  kept  things  much  the  same. 

The  eldest  son  is  to  succeed  to  the  business, 
of  course,  but  the  second  looks  to  me  so  dandi- 
fied. I  know  this  for  certain  that  none  of 
Richard's  sons  will  ever  work  out  in  the  fields 
in  clogs  and  woollen  shirts.  And  their 
mother  will  never  have  the  joy  of  darning 
stockings  with  holes  in  them  as  big  as  goose's 
eggs.  While  I  sit  with  a  pair  of  these  coarse, 
huge,  manly  socks  in  which  my  hand  is  abso- 
lutely drowned,  I  feel  to  the  full  extent  a 
mother's  glorious  rights.  I  only  wish  the 
holes  were  double  the  size,  so  that  the  time 
they  take  to  mend  lasted  longer. 

I  have  been  and  bought  the  pan  for  cook- 
170 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

ing  oxeyes  in,  and  I  have  promised  Kelly  and 
Oluf  that  every  time  they  come  they  shall 
have  oxeyes  baked  in  butter.  Magna 
requires  nothing  but  her  horrid  nut-suet  which 
has  no  flavour.  She  alone  can  cat  it.  Dear, 
dear  boys. 

Dear  Agnete, 

It  was  well  that  you  wrote  to  me  this  time, 
and  not  to  your  mother.  You  are  not  to 
trouble  her  with  your  unhappy  affairs,  do  you 
understand?  Every  time  that  she  gets  a  letter 
from  you  she  shuts  herself  up  and  cries. 
Lately  I  have  read  quite  a  number  of  your 
letters,  and  I  must  confess  that  I  was  not 
pleased  with  them. 

At  one  time  you  presumed  to  sit  in  judg- 
ment on  your  mother's  life,  and  now  you 
blame  her  because  yours  is  a  failure.  You 
have  no  right  to  do  it. 

You  cannot  justly  lay  your  married  wretch- 
edness at  either  your  mother's  or  your  hus- 

171 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

band's  door.  Its  origin  is  to  be  sought  in  a 
train  of  circumstances.  You  must  know, 
though  you  seem  to  have  forgotten  it,  that  it 
was  not  your  mother  who  gave  in  to  your  de- 
sire to  go  to  the  French  Convent  School.  It 
was  my  doing  that  you  went.  I  sent  you  for 
her  peace  of  mind's  sake. 

That  you  have  married  a  Catholic  while 
you  yourself  are  a  Protestant  is  no  one's  fault 
but  your  own,  as  you  did  not  ask  anybody's 
permission.  Unfortunately  you  have  inher- 
ited from  your  mother  a  hysterical  tempera- 
ment, and  from  your  father  a  certain  matter- 
of-factness  which  prevents  your  enjoying  life. 

I  feel  compelled  to  act  like  a  surgeon  who 
undertakes  a  necessary  operation,  in  spite  of 
the  patient's  objection  to  scars. 

The  only  time  your  husband  was  here  on  a 
visit  I  was  able  to  get  a  certain  impression  of 
his  character.  You  are  right  in  saying  that 
he  is  "dangerous  to  women  through  the  animal 
magnetism  which  radiates  from  his  person,  at- 

172 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

tracting  to  him  adults  and  children  alike." 
And  you  might  add,  "through  his  natural 
amiability  and  his  kindliness."  He  makes  no 
disguise  of  his  vanity,  but  when  you  plume 
yourself  on  being  his  only  chick  because  you 
alone  resist  him,  you  are  adopting  a  dangerous 
line.  The  man  who  wishes  to  be  worshipped 
will  not  be  discouraged  by  superior  airs, 
especially  when  these  are  put  on,  and  you 
merely  feign  opposition  in  order  to  annoy 
him,  and  to  conceal  how  much  you  are  in  love. 

Owing  to  the  position  he  holds  he  is  the 
centre  of  much  attention.  He  is  unable,  like 
most  men,  to  diverge  from  the  high  road. 
Every  movement  of  his  is  noticed,  and  may 
cause  him  unpleasantness.  Thus  his  position 
forces  him  to  be  cautious.  Yet  you  as  his 
loving  wife  accuse  him  of  giving  to  every 
woman  what  ought  to  be  your  position  alone. 

Your  want  of  trust  puts  him  on  the  rack. 
You  pluck  his  nerves  to  pieces,  and  dissect 
his  secret  thoughts.     You  hate  him  for  not 

173 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

being  unfaithful  to  you  in  deed  in  that  you 
suspect  continually  that  he  is  unfaithful  to 
you  in  thought.  You  hurt  him  by  telling  him 
constantly  that  your  mutual  life  is  animal  and 
savage,  that  he  lacks  soul,  and  does  not  com- 
prehend what  it  is  to  love  with  the  soul 
as  you  do.  He  retorts  by  calling  you  hyster- 
ical. 

Then  a  young  girl  comes  to  stay  in  your 
house.  She  falls  in  love  with  your  husband, 
and  he  is  in  love  with  her.  You  say,  "She 
made  a  dead  set  at  him."  Instead  of  deciding 
to  remove  her  immediately  you  watch  for 
proofs  of  the  criminal  relations  which  you 
suspect.  I  don't  condemn  you  for  getting 
hold  of  your  husband's  letters  by  any  means 
honourable  or  the  reverse,  because  jealous 
wives  are  as  irresponsible  for  their  actions  as 
patients  with  a  temperature  of  a  hundred  and 
six.  You  triumph  and  cause  yourself  dia- 
bolical torments  by  revelling  in  the  stolen 
love-letters.     You  find  in  them  the  "psycho- 

174 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

logical''  impulse  that  you  have  missed  in  your 
husband's  love. 

What  ought  you  to  do  now?  Either  you 
must  go,  as  you  cannot  stay  with  a  man  who 
is  in  love  with  another;  or  you  must  remain 
and  leave  him  and  his  feelings  in  peace. 
Nonsense!  Instead  you  thrust  a  dagger 
into  his  heart  and  turn  it  in  the  wound.  If 
he  moans,  you  ask,  "Do  you  still  love 
her?" 

You  think  that  love  can  be  wrenched  out 
of  a  man's  life  as  easily  as  a  tooth  is  drawn, 
root  and  all. 

Agony  brings  your  husband  to  reason  and 
his  senses,  he  belies  what  he  feels  and  cries, 
"I  love  no  one  but  you!"  But  even  then  can 
you  leave  him  alone?  Certainly  not.  You 
now  insist  on  his  telling  everything,  betraying 
and  deceiving.  You  know,  as  a  Catholic,  he 
cannot  claim  a  divorce,  and  yet  you  ask  if  he 
will  marry  her  in  the  case  of  your  retiring? 
Not  a  word  of  this  offer  do  you  intend  seri- 

175 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

ously.     You  want  to  humiliate  and  torment 
him. 

Next  you  make  a  scene  with  the  girl,  per- 
vert his  words  about  her,  misapply  your 
knowledge,  and  use  such  expressions  as  "Im- 
purity, lies,  vulgarity."  But  she  only  an- 
swers, "I  love  him,  I  cannot  do  anything  else." 
And  you  find  this  exasperating. 

Not  once  has  it  occurred  to  you  to  set  your 
husband  free.  He  belongs  to  you,  he  is  in 
your  power.  You  begin  all  over  again.  You 
haven't  an  hour's  rest  because  you  must  spy 
on  all  his  actions.  You  reproach  him  for 
being  a  Catholic.  His  baseness  is  trebled  be- 
cause he  is  Catholic — as  if  lies  had  anything 
to  do  with  articles  of  faith. 

You  are  leading  a  pretty  life  I  Then  your 
husband  falls  ill.  For  a  long  time  he  has 
complained  of  a  tumour  in  his  chest.  "If  it 
grows  it'll  have  to  be  removed  for  it  may  be 
cancer."  This  is  a  trifling  matter,  or  you 
inwardly  triumph  over  it  as  "a  judgment." 

176 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

One  morning  he  leaves  the  house  on  busi- 
ness. He  takes  leave  of  you  tenderly  and 
comes  back  over  and  over  again  to  kiss  you 
with  emotion.  You  at  once  suspect  deceit, 
and  heap  reproaches  on  him  for  intending  to 
do  something  behind  your  back.  He  smiles 
sadly  and  says,  "If  that  is  so  you  will  soon 
hear  what  it  is." 

At  mid-day  you  have  a  "vision,"  if  what 
you  write  is  true.  You  see  him  lying  on  the 
operating  table.  You  telephone  to  the  hospi- 
tal and  learn  that  the  operation  has  taken 
place.     You  hurry  there  and  meet  the  girl. 

To  you  he  has  not  spoken  of  the  serious 
ordeal  in  store  for  him.  But  he  has  sent  for 
her. 

This  is  the  last  drop  that  overflows  your 
cup  of  anguish.  You  take  your  sick  husband 
home.  You  torture  him  till  he  says,  "Death 
would  be  better  than  this." 

And  now  you  ask  me  what  you  ought  to 
do. 

"  177 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

It  would  be  much  simpler  to  tell  you  what 
you  ought  not  to  have  done. 

But  it  is  too  late  for  that  now.  All  the 
same,  I  will,  to  the  best  of  my  poor  abilities, 
give  you  advice  and  the  benefit  of  my  experi- 
ence, gathered  from  contemplation  of  many 
wretched  and  foolish  cases  in  which  people 
tread  happiness  under  foot,  and  then  instantly 
lament  what  they  have  lost. 

First  and  foremost,  Agnete,  you  must  look 
into  yourself,  and  get  rid  of  the  lie  which  like 
an  octopus  has  caught  you  in  its  embrace  and 
smothers  the  best  within  you. 

The  lie  about  your  husband's  deficiency. 
Your  expressions  of  longing  for  a  harmony  of 
souls  is  a  lie,  just  as  your  pretension  to  love 
with  the  soul  and  not  with  the  senses  is  a  lie. 

You  are  one  of  the  many  women  who,  for 
reasons  which  I  fail  to  understand,  find 
no  salvation  in  your  relations  to  a  man. 
What  for  him  was  the  highest  enjoyment,  for 
you    was    only    a    torturing    excitement.     A 

178 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

physical  shortcoming  in  yourself  would  in 
him  appear  a  crime  in  your  eyes.  Instead 
of  honestly  and  frankly  explaining  to  him  the 
state  of  things  and  the  cause  of  your  unhappy 
condition,  you  try  to  seek  satisfaction  by  mak- 
ing scenes. 

Don't  you  see,  dear  child,  a  clever  woman 
never  makes  scenes.  It  isn't  politic.  A 
scene  that  lasts  an  hour  does  fourteen  days' 
detriment  to  her  appearance. 

Your  question,  "What  ought  I  to  do  now?" 
really  means,  "How  can  I  punish  him 
further?" 

Rather  you  should  ask,  "What  can  I  do  to 
heal  his  wounded  soul?"  And  this  is  my 
answer,  Agnete,  "You  can  do  it  by  confessing 
your  own  mistakes,  and  forgetting  his." 

You  must  not  ape  humility,  and  let  some- 
thing cry  within  you,  "See  what  a  sacrifice 
I  am  making!" 

No,  you  must  acknowledge  your  wrong- 
doing and  not  let  it  out  of  sight.     Take  it 

179 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

in  both  hands,  hold  it  tightly  like  a  costly 
goblet,  and  keep  your  eyes  fixed  on  it.  You 
should  remember  that  it  is  no  credit  to  you 
that  you  have  not  betrayed  him  because  there 
has  been  no  necessity;  for  you  know  nothing 
of  the  mad  impulse  that  can  arise  between  two 
human  creatures,  suddenly,  like  a  storm  in  the 
thickest  part  of  the  wood. 

Above  all  things,  recognise  that  at  the  time 
your  husband  summoned  his  mistress  to  his 
side  when  he  thought  he  was  going  to  die,  he 
acted  from  the  greatest  and  most  primitive 
of  instincts — the  instinct  of  love. 

Tell  him  that  you  have  been  wrong.  Show 
him  your  love.  Give  him  your  best.  Not 
for  an  hour  or  a  day,  but  every  hour  and  every 
day.  That  is  the  only  way  to  his  heart,  and 
to  your  own  peace  of  mind.  And  then  the 
time  will  come  when  mutual  forgiveness  has 
performed  its  miracle. 

Try  to  understand  what  I  mean. 

Hearty  good  wishes  from  your  mother's  old 
180 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

friend.     If  you  like  you  may  show  your  hus- 
band this  letter. 

Elsie  Lindtner. 

It  is  certainly  a  very  fine  trait  in  Magna's 
character,  that  she  who  used  to  be — well, 
never  mind,  I  won't  say  what — has  never 
breathed  the  name  of  her  child's  father  to 
any  living  soul. 

The  man  must  have  been  good  and  strong, 
and  I  am  fortunate  indeed  that,  my  Kelly  has 
found  a  protector  in  the  little  fellow.  Oluf 
doesn't  like  Kelly  drinking  schnaps.  So 
Kelly  doesn't  drink  schnaps.  Oluf  wants 
Kelly's  moustache  to  grow,  so  Kelly  lets  it 
grow. 

"So  long  as  I  have  Oluf,  who  takes  care  of 
me,  you  need  not  be  afraid  of  me."  Those 
words  are  close  to  my  heart. 

And  yet  I  have  still  some  anxiety.  The 
world  is  so  big,  and  here  things  are  reduced 
to  such  a  groove.     I  notice  the  effect  on  Oluf 

i8i 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

when  Kelly  tells  him  about  America.  Who 
knows  if  the  day  will  not  come  when  the  pair 
come  to  bid  me  and  Magna  farewell  to  go  off 
on  adventures? 

Oluf  was  making  plans  the  other  day  for 
travelling  to  Canada,  and  camping  in  the 
great  forests  far  away  from  civilisation.  The 
boy  had  fixed  it  all  up.  They  were  to  live 
in  the  trees,  and  live  by  hunting  and  fishing. 
Perched  up  on  the  highest  branches  they 
would  spread  out  their  nets,  and  catch  fish  out 
of  the  great  river  that  rolls  through  the  forest. 
They  would  only  enter  a  town  twice  a  year 
to  sell  the  skins  of  the  beasts  they  had  caught. 

Oluf  is  not  too  small  for  such  dreams,  but 
Kelly— 

I  am  so  unwilling  to  budge  from  here  till 
Kelly  has  taken  root  in  the  soil  so  that  he  can't 
tear  himself  away.  He  promises  to  stay  here 
always,  but  what  is  a  promise? 


182 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

Dear  Magna, 

I  must  really  tell  you  without  delay. 
Richard  has  been  to  see  me.  When  Lucie 
brought  in  his  card  I  was  dumbfounded. 
But  the  moment  he  entered  the  room,  thank 
God  I  got  over  my  feeling  of  embarrassment. 
We  stood  and  looked  at  each  other,  and  were 
at  a  loss  how  to  begin  the  conversation,  till 
it  occurred  to  Richard  to  say  something  about 
Kelly.     He  knew,  of  course,  the  whole  story. 

It  did  one  good  to  see  the  dear  fellow,  to 
speak  to  him  again.  He  said  he  could  only 
stay  a  few  minutes,  and  he  stayed  two  hours. 
In  reality,  it  was  his  little  wife  who  sent  him 
to  see  me.  She  thought  it  so  extraordinary 
that  she  should  not  know  me,  who  had  played 
such  an  important  part  for  so  many  years  in 
Richard's  life. 

We  spoke  a  great  deal  of  our  respective 
children,  and  were  both  equally  proud. 

Now  Richard  has  promised  to  visit  me  next 
183 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

Sunday  with  his  family.  You  and  our  boys 
come,  too.  In  the  course  of  the  week  I  shall 
return  Richard's  call. 

Do  you  know,  Magna,  I  intend  to  make 
it  quite  a  festive  occasion,  and  there  shall  be 
no  feeling  in  the  matter  that  I  am  a  divorced 
wife.  You  will  have  to  lend  me  a  few  things 
as  most  of  my  china  is  over  in  the  villa,  and 
I  shall  order  the  food  to  be  sent  in  from 
Palace  Street.  One  can  be  certain  of  getting 
it  good  there,  or  would  you  advise  going  to  an 
hotel?  I  have  got  so  out  of  the  habit  of  en- 
tertaining that  I  feel  nervous  at  the  thought 
of  it. 

Anyhow,  you  must  come,  Magna,  and  take 
care  that  Kelly  is  properly  attired.  Also  see 
to  his  hands. 

When  Richard  was  gone,  I  sat  a  long  time 
and  meditated  in  retrospect  on  how  very 
nicely  he  and  I  had  once  got  on  together. 
The  one  drawback  was  that  we  had  no  chil- 
dren.    On  that  account  I  made  the  sacrifice 

184 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

and  left  him.     I  have  been  royally  rewarded 
for  it,  through  my  Kelly. 

Richard's  wife  plays  a  good  game  of 
bridge,  and  we  have  already  started  a  society 
for  the  winter.  The  report  of  your  enormous 
pluck  has  reached  the  old  Market  Place,  for 
Richard  spoke  of  you  in  terms  of  the  warmest 
admiration  and  esteem.  At  parting  we  both 
positively  had  tears  in  our  eyes. 

May  I,  without  hurting  you,  give  a  hint? 
Please  put  on  your  silk  dress,  Magna.  I 
shall  have  a  new  one  made,  I  think,  as  quickly 
as  possible.  You  see,  this  is  to  be  a  very  im- 
portant event  in  my  life. 

Embrace  my  boy  for  me,  and  remember 
what  I  said  about  his  hands. 

Elsie. 


185 


DEAR  Jeanne, 
It  is  wrong  of  me  to  have  been  so 
lazy  lately  about  writing.  But  I  have 
had  so  much  to  do.  I  have,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  moved  house.  It  happened  in  a  twin- 
kling. This  habitation  became  to  let  through 
a  death,  and  mine  was  taken  by  a  young  mar- 
ried couple. 

Now  I  am  living  on  the  beach  road  so  far 
out  that  I  am  hardly  to  be  reckoned  as  belong- 
ing to  Copenhagen.  Can  you  guess  why  I 
have  moved?  Simply  to  be  nearer  the  farm, 
so  childish  does  one  become  with  advancing 
age.  Magna  advised  me  strongly  to  come 
out  altogether,  but  I  am  not  inclined  to  do 
that.  I  am  always  and  shall  be  a  child  of 
towns,  though  in  the  year  that  Kelly  has  been 
learning  to  be  a  farmer  I  have  taken  an  al- 
most incredible  interest  in  cows,  pigs,  winter 

i86 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

crops,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  My  life  is  so  full 
of  richness  and  light,  1  have  nearly  more  joy 
than  I  can  bear,  and  no  troubles  at  all. 

Magna  manages  our  "estate,"  as  she  always 
calls  it  to  please  me,  most  admirably.  And 
how  well  she  understands  the  art  of  setting 
others  to  work! 

My  Kelly  and  her  little  Oluf  are  now,  as 
they  always  have  been,  inseparable,  and  I  be- 
lieve that  the  blue-eyed  little  comrade  exer- 
cises a  mo»t  beneficent  influence  on  Kelly. 
Magna  told  me  one  day  that  she  had  heard 
Oluf  saying — the  boy  lay  in  a  hay-cock  and 
didn't  know  that  Magna  was  on  the  other  side 
of  it  taking  her  after-dinner  nap — "I  have  no 
father,  for  my  father  died  ten  years  before 
I  was  born.  But  if  you  like  to  be  my  father, 
I  shall  be  quite  content  to  have  no  other." 

Magna  visits  me  every  time  that  she  has 
anything  to  do  in  the  town.  When  the  win- 
dow is  open  I  can  hear  the  crack  of  her  whip 
above  all  the  rest.     And  will  you  believe  it, 

187 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

Jeanne,  my  heart  begins  to  beat  at  the  sound, 
for  it  means  that  the  boys  are  with  her,  or  that 
Magna  is  coming  to  tell  me  about  them. 
You  should  just  see  her  sitting  rosy  and  up- 
right in  the  dog-cart,  her  head  hidden  in  a 
hood,  with  an  old  sealskin  on,  all  rubbed  the 
wrong  way,  the  same  that  twenty  years  ago 
formed  a  topic  of  conversation  the  whole  win- 
ter through,  because  it  had  cost  her  poor, 
struggling  husband  goodness  knows  how 
many  thousands. 

Magna  is  now  getting  on  for  sixty.  But 
no  one  would  think  it.  She  beams  as  if  the 
whole  world  were  at  her  feet.  I  look  at  least 
ten  years  older,  although,  God  knows,  I  take 
a  lot  of  trouble  over  my  hair,  and  touch  up 
my  cheeks  a  little,  as  I  always  did.  She 
makes  a  fuss  about  getting  out  of  the  cart  as 
if  the  coachman  could  not  look  after  the 
butter  and  eggs. 

Just  think,  she  gets  up  at  four  in  summer 
and    at   six   in   winter,   and   works    for   two. 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

There  is  no  work  that  she  considers  is  too 
menial. 

Lately  she  and  Kelly  painted  all  the  four 
buildings  for  Whitsun.  And  they  did  it  like 
the  wind,  so  that  one  could  hardly  believe 
one's  own  eyes.  I  sat  out  on  the  verandah 
and  watched,  and  was  nearly  sick  with  de- 
light. 

Then  we  had  roast  ribs  and  oxeyes  for  din- 
ner. How  Kelly  eats  I  You  can  have  no 
conception  of  his  appetite.  It's  not  elegant, 
but  oh,  so  splendid!  And  after  they  have 
been  slaughtering  Kelly  brings  me  lambs'  fry, 
black  puddings,  and  liver  sausages.  What  I 
once  couldn't  tolerate  now  tastes  to  me  better 
than  the  finest  Astrakhan  caviare. 

How  I  chat  on  all  about  my  own  affairs. 
But  I  don't  forget  my  little  fellow-traveller 
on  that  account,  and  her  troubles  are  mine. 
Still,  I  am  not  going  to  make  them  such  a  seri- 
ous matter  as  you  do,  for  they  are  not  worth 
it.     You  have  arrived  at  a  stage  when  every- 

189 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

thing  looks  to  you  black,  and  must  look  so.  I 
should  be  deeply  pained  if  I  had  not  long  ago 
seen  what  the  cause  of  it  is.  You  are  now 
just  about  the  age  I  was  when  we  first  met 
each  other;  that  age  which  for  women  is  so 
difficult  and  dangerous.  And  the  inexplica- 
ble happiness  is  not  granted  to  every  woman 
to  come  through  the  time  unscathed  and  tri- 
umphant as  I  did. 

I  have  thought  about  it,  and  wondered 
what  the  reason  could  be  why  I,  contrary  to 
every  one  else,  should  remain  during  those 
years  much  the  same  as  always;  and  I  have 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  because  I 
lived  so  superficially  at  that  time,  and  with- 
out any  deep  feeling  for  other  people. 

But  you,  little  Jeanne,  since  you  linked 
your  fate  so  fortunately  with  Malthe's,  have 
been  a  sheer  compost  of  love-worship  and 
self-sacrifice.  I  could  have  foretold  long  ago 
that  your  transition  age  would  be  a  hard  time. 
But  now  try  yourself  to  make  it  easier.     Re- 

190 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

view  the  circumstances,  sift,  and  explain  them 
to  yourself. 

You  have  something  to  be  thankful  for  that 
does  not  fall  to  the  lot  of  one  woman  in  ten 
thousand.  Your  husband  continues  to  love 
you  as  much  to-day  as  when  you  first  became 
his.  Does  that  not  counter-balance  every- 
thing? Are  the  little  cosmopolitan  godless 
angels  of  children  really  so  hard  to  bring  up 
as  you  think?  They  have,  of  course,  the  ar- 
tistic temperament,  and  you  attempt  to  model 
them  into  normal  human  beings.  You  will 
never  succeed. 

And  is  Malthe's  depression  of  spirits  of  any 
great  significance?  There  is  cause  for  it. 
He  has  of  late,  with  justice  or  injustice,  been 
overlooked,  and  younger  powers  have  been 
preferred  before  him;  his  name  has  no  longer 
the  cachet  it  once  had,  and  even  his  talent 
seems  to  have  taken  a  back  seat.  But,  dear 
Jeanne,  you  are  greatly  to  blame  for  this. 
You  have  loved  your  husband  so  blindly  and 

191 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

fondly  that  you  have  not  set  him  on  a  pedestal, 
but  you  have  built  a  castle  of  air  far  up  in  the 
highest  clouds,  and  there  you  have  placed 
him  like  a  golden  ball  on  the  most  inacces- 
sible pinnacle,  with  no  one  above  him  and  no 
one  near  him.  .  .  .  You  have  fed  his  ambi- 
tion and  stifled  your  own  natural,  critical 
faculty,  instead  of  standing  at  his  side  and  be- 
ing helpful  to  him  in  deciding  between  good 
and  mediocre,  and  now  you  complain  that  you 
cannot  console,  and  that  he  spurns  you.  You 
are  ashamed  to  say  so,  but  I  read  between  the 
lines  that  you  are  very,  very  unhappy.  .  .  . 
And  it  is  all  because  you  are  not  well,  dear 
Jeanne,  and  your  despondency  is  likely  to  last 
some  years. 

But  I  could  hit,  I  think,  on  ways  and  means 
of  putting  your  cares  to  flight;  if  only  you 
will  at  once  make  up  your  mind  to  bring  your 
little  flock  northwards,  so  that  I  may  take 
them  with  me  to  the  Villa  this  summer,  and 

192 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

teach  the  little  goose-herds,  the  Parisian, 
the  Sicilian,  and  the  Smyrna  child,  indifferent 
Danish,  while  you  and  your  Malthe  close  the 
house,  store  your  furniture,  and  trot  round  the 
globe. 

Don't  let  the  thought  of  money  stand  in 
your  way.  Tell  Joergen  from  me  that  he 
may  with  an  easy  hand  use  the  money  which 
he  would  set  aside  as  a  dowry  for  his  daugh- 
ters. 

He  must  be  ashamed  of  himself  if  he  has 
not  that  opinion  about  his  own  flesh  and 
blood,  that  it  will  be  a  pure  joy  to  any 
one  to  take  over  the  girls,  even  if  they  come 
without  a  rag  to  their  backs  or  clothed  in 
flour  sacks. 

Besides,  I  have  made  my  will,  and,  dear 
Jeanne,  if  I  once  played  la  banque  at  Monte 
Carlo,  I  am  not  likely  to  do  it  again. 

What  a  glorious  summer  it  will  be  over 

there  in  the  White  Villa  with  your  chicks. 
»3  193 


•    ELSIE  LINDTNER 

And  we'll  borrow  Magna's  Oluf  and  my 
Kelly  for  a  week,  too.  What  does  my  old 
travelling  companion  say  to  this? 

Much  love  to  you  and  to  your  husband,  and 
the  whole  small  flock,  from 

Yours  always, 

Elsie  Lindtner. 

Poor  Jeanne  and  poor  Joergen.  ...  So  it 
fares  worse  with  you  than  I  thought. 

I  have  the  greatest  desire  to  travel  over  to 
them  and  mediate,  but  in  these  days  my  heart 
is  too  touchy  and  my  neuralgia  a  considera- 
tion. I  ought  not  by  rights  to  sit  out  on  the 
balcony  in  the  cool  evening  air,  but  I  never 
could  be  careful. 

But  it  shall  not  happen;  it  would  be  too 
foolish  and  irresponsible  a  step — people  don't 
separate  in  a  hurry  like  that  without  a  ghost 
of  a  real  reason.  All  very  well  if  Malthe 
had  another  string  to  his  bow,  or  if  Jeanne 
was   in   love  with   another  man,   but,   good 

194 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

Lord  I  one  of  them  couldn't  live  without  the 
other,  and  yet  she  talks  of  having  "weighed" 
the  matter,  and  thoroughly  thought  it  out.  I 
am  so  angry  my  hands  tremble. 

Jeanne  must  really  collect  herself,  and  un- 
derstand that  all  this  is  nothing  but  a  transi- 
tion. When  I  think  of  it,  I  can  recall  no  case 
among  the  many  I  have  known — except,  of 
course,  my  own — of  a  single  woman  who  has 
managed  to  get  through  these  years  without 
a  slight  rumpus  of  some  kind.  Afterwards 
they  have  taken  endless  trouble  to  patch 
up  the  wounds  they  have  inflicted.  Now, 
Jeanne  has  been  more  than  unreasonable  in 
this  respect.  There  isn't  a  man  in  the  world 
who  can  stand  such  an  everlasting  adoration. 

It  was  certainly  brutal  of  him  to  say,  "Mind 
yourself,  your  house,  and  your  children,  but 
don't  meddle  with  my  work." 

But  he  meant  nothing  more  by  it  than  a 
child  in  a  temper  does  when  it  vents  its  anger 
in   trampling   on   a   favourite   toy.     Yet   the 

195 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

words  rankled  in  Jeanne  as  a  reproach — a  re- 
proach for  what? 

He  has  lost  faith  in  his  talent.  Therefore 
he  is  irritable  and  dejected,  and  Jeanne,  who 
all  these  years  has  had  enough  to  do  in  bring- 
ing children  into  the  world,  and  caring  for 
them  and  him,  now  stands  suddenly  still,  looks 
round  and  behind  her,  and  feels  disillusioned. 
Now  is  the  time  when  she  wants  the  tenderest 
words  he  has  ever  lavished  on  her,  but  he, 
with  his  head  full  of  building  plans,  sees  no 
sense  or  object  in  two  people  talking  of  love — 
two  people  who  have  proved  their  love  with 
their  whole  life. 

One  of  them  ought  to  fall  sick  unto  death 
...  so  that  the  other  should  forget  his  small 
grievances. 

Well,  we  shall  see.  If  Jeanne  listens  to  my 
advice,  and  lets  the  children  come  up  here,  all 
will  be  well.  ...  A  little  air  and  freedom  is 
what  they  need ;  otherwise  I  shall  have  to  sac- 
rifice myself  and  for  the  second  time  knock 

196 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

about  the  world  with  my  little  travelling  com- 
panion. 

So  I  have  been  in  my  old  home  once  more! 
Weeks  will  have  to  go  by  before  I  get  over 
the  re-visiting  of  it.  Every  trace  of  me  had 
been  removed — with  a  scrupulous  care  and 
thoroughness  as  if  every  piece  of  furniture, 
every  hanging  and  picture  had  been  danger- 
ously infected.  Doors  had  been  obliterated, 
and  new  ones  cut  in  walls  which  used  to  be 
doorless.  Not  even  the  peaceful  white  fire- 
places were  there  any  longer,  but  instead 
gilded  radiators.  Had  I  never  inhabited  the 
rooms  they  could  not  have  seemed  more 
strange.  I  looked  in  vain  for  Richard's  oak 
bookcase,  and  the  panels  from  his  grand- 
mother's country  place. 

I  had  to  see  everything.  My  namesake — 
she  who  bears  the  name  by  right,  not  courtesy 
— led  me  from  one  room  to  another.  It  was 
as  if  she  asked  me  incessantly,  "Isn't  there 

197 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

anything  that  reminds  you  of  your  reign?" 
No,  nothing,  not  the  very  least  thing. 

And  then  when  we  sat  round  the  table  at 
which  Richard  and  I  used  to  sit  alone  with 
the  servants  waiting  behind  our  chairs,  all  the 
vacant  places  were  filled  with  children  whose 
appearance  in  the  world  was  one  of  the  condi- 
tions of  my  departure.  Wonderful,  wonder- 
ful I  and  a  little  sad. 

I  noticed  how  Richard  exerted  himself 
that  I  should  feel  at  ease.  But  he,  too,  I 
think,  was  moved  by  the  oddness  of  the  situa- 
tion. 

She  calls  me  Madame  Elsie,  and  I  call  her 
Madame  Beathe. 

Involuntarily  I  glanced  round  for  the  big 
portrait  Kroyer  in  his  day  painted  of  me,  the 
portrait  which  Richard  simply  idolised.  He 
saw  what  I  was  looking  for,  and  cast  down 
his  eyes.  I  felt  inclined  to  say,  "Dearest 
friend,  don't  let  us  be  sentimental.  What 
was  once  is  no  longer.     But  the  picture  was  a 

198 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

true  work  of  art,  and  for  that  reason  you 
should  have  let  it  hang  where  it  was." 

One  thinks  such  things,  but  doesn't  say 
them. 

I  was  shown,  too,  the  daughters'  bedroom 
upstairs,  and  there — there  hung  my  picture 
among  photographs  of  actresses  and  school 
friends.  Finally  it  will  land  in  the  attic  un- 
less it  occurs  to  some  one  to  make  money  out 
of  it. 

Why  is  it  I  cannot  get  rid  of  a  feeling  of 
bitterness  and  humiliation?  They  were  all 
very  kind  and  considerate.  But  when 
Madame  Beathe  joking  suggested  a  match  be- 
tween her  Annelisa  and  my  Kelly,  I  felt  near 
to  crying.  Annelisa  is  a  thoroughly  nice  girl, 
it  is  true.  But  I  cannot  endure  the  thought 
of  Kelly  being  looked  down  on,  because  of  his 
country  manners.  And  she  does  look  down 
on  him. 

The  little  mistress  has  one  fault.  She  is 
too  immaculately  tidy.     I  noticed  that  all  the 

199 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

carpets  had  dusting  sheets  over  them,  and 
naturally  supposed  their  removal  had  been 
forgotten,  till  I  saw  that  every  single  article 
on  her  dressing-table  w^as  covered  in  the 
middle  of  the  day  with  gauze,  and  I  heard 
her  scolding  one  of  the  maids  for  not  wash- 
ing her  hands  before  beginning  to  lay  the 
cloth  after  touching  some  books.  Richard,  I 
am  sure,  finds  it  trying. 

When  he  smokes  a  cigar  she  sits  on  pins  and 
needles  for  fear  he  shall  scatter  the  ash  about. 
And  God  knows  that  for  a  man  Richard  is 
tidy  enough.  She  discovered  a  mark  on  the 
white  window-ledge,  only  a  raindrop,  I  be- 
lieve, but  got  up  twenty  times  at  least  to  scrub, 
brush,  and  breathe  on  the  spot. 

It  gives  me  food  for  thought.  It  is  not  for 
me  to  judge  what  she  does  and  how  she  acts. 
But  I  can't  get  over  it.  I  feel  bound  to 
criticise  her.  And  somehow  the  idea  will 
bother  me  that  this  is  my  home  she  is  fussing 
about  in,  and  not  the  other  way  about. 

200 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

Annelisa  kissed  me  at  parting,  and  asked  if 
she  might  soon  come  to  see  me.  But  she  shall 
not  come  when  Kelly  is  at  home.  That  is 
certain. 

And  now  they  have  invited  me  to  a  grand 
dinner-party. 


* 
*      ♦ 


Kelly  must  have  a  tail-coat,  there  is   no 
question  of  that. 


* 
*       * 


No,  Kelly  shall  not  have  a  dress  suit. 
Kelly  won't  come  with  me  to  the  dinner-party 
at  Richard's.     I  am  going  alone. 


* 
*       * 


Pah  I  I  am  positively  excited  I  It  was  a 
grand  occasion.  And  it  did  me  good  to  hear 
pretty  speeches  made  about  my  appearance. 
The  orchids  certainly  did  go  well  with  my 

201 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

mauve  silk.  They  couldn't  have  come  from 
anywhere  but  Paris,  of  course. 

Annelisa  and  I  became  great  friends.  She 
took  me  up  to  her  room  and  confided  in  me 
that  she  and  her  mother  don't  get  on. 

You  were  afraid  to  move  almost  for  fear 
of  being  told  you  were  making  things  in  a 
mess.  And  the  child  betrayed,  by  the  way, 
the  little  domestic  secret  that  her  mother  now 
had  a  bedroom  to  herself,  because  her  father 
was  so  untidy  in  shaving.  When  no  one  was 
looking  her  mother  went  about  with  a  duster 
and  wiped  away  the  marks  left  by  the  soles  of 
your  boots.  Wasn't  it  too  awful?  But  it 
didn't  seem  so  dreadful  to  me,  for  all  at  once 
I  saw  plainly  what  it  meant,  and  I  consoled 
the  child  by  telling  her  that  in  a  year  or  two 
the  scouring  demon  would  be  cleaned  away. 

Richard  seems  quite  unconcerned.  He 
doesn't  dream  of  complaining.  But  if  he  has 
any  memory,  it  must  occur  to  him  in  looking 
back,  how  in  the  years  that  I  was  passing 

202 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

through  the  phase,  everything  inwardly  and 
outwardly  went  on  the  same  as  usual. 

Richard  plays  a  brilliant  game  of  bridge. 
But  I  must  say  I  was  utterly  unprepared  for 
Professor  Rothe  making  the  third.  He  be- 
haved as  if  nothing  whatever  had  passed  be- 
tween us.  And  Lili's  name  was  not  men- 
tioned. 

Richard  said  when  I  rose  to  go,  "You  have 
been  the  Queen  of  the  Feast  I"  God  knows  I 
blushed. 

Maybe  that  in  his  secret  heart  he  recognises 
the  great  sacrifice  I  made  for  him.  It  was, 
undoubtedly,  no  easy  matter  to  leave  him  and 
the  beautiful  house.  But  my  exemplary  con- 
science was  sufficient  reward,  even  if  I  had 
not  afterwards  received  the  guerdon  of  Kelly. 


I  believe  I  shall  succeed  in  having  a  chat 
with  Madame  Beathe  about  her  tic  doloreux. 
If  one  broaches  the  subject  tactfully,  it's  pos- 

203 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

sible  to  achieve  a  great  deal ;  and  it  is  only  a 
matter  of  getting  her  to  see  herself  that  her 
malady  is  an  appendage  of  her  years. 

What  holes  Kelly  wears  his  stockings  into, 
and  how  black  he  makes  his  pocket-handker- 
chiefs I  I  do  believe  the  boy  uses  them  to 
wash  the  cart-wheels. 

*       * 

Kelly  said  yesterday,  "And  if  you  hadn't 
adopted  me,  I  should  have  been  in  the  gutter 
all  my  life."     How  he  looks  at  me! 


I  suppose  I  had  better  have  left  it  alone. 
I  was  told  that  for  others  such  a  period  of  in- 
capability might  exist,  but  not  for  her.  She 
knew  the  duties  of  a  proper  housewife,  and 
did  not  attend  to  a  fifth  part  of  things  and 
leave  the  rest  in  dirt  and  disorder. 

204 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

It  was  a  little  too  much  that  I  should  not 
only  come  and  interfere  in  her  housekeeping, 
but  ascribe  to  her  a  fictitious  illness  that  only 
existed  in  my  imagination.  .  .  .  And  then 
followed  a  long  story  which  to  listen  to  was 
enough  to  make  one  laugh  and  weep  together. 
Goodness!  she  had  actually  been  jealous  of 
my  former  regime,  and  had  no  peace  till  she 
had  turned  the  whole  house  topsy-turvy. 
She  didn't  intend  that  I  should  know  this. 
But  the  storm  burst  when  she  thought  to-day 
I  had  been  taking  my  revenge.  Her  one  ob- 
ject in  life  was  to  live  for  her  husband,  her 
home,  and  her  children,  and  she  had  no  no- 
tions about  posing  as  a  beauty,  and  be  painted 
by  famous  artists.     And  so  on.  .  .  . 

She  was  so  beside  herself  finally,  that  I  was 
obliged  to  cave  in,  and  say  that  I  had  made 
a  mistake,  she  was  not  at  the  dangerous  age, 
and  her  scouring  mania  was  a  perfectly  natu- 
ral instinct,  and  it  was  a  pity  that  all  house- 
wives did  not  follow  her  example. 

205 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

And  then  we  were  good  friends  again,  and 
she  told  me  that  she  was  very  glad  I  was 
really  quite  old. 

Any  woman  so  old  and  harmless,  of  course 
didn't  count. 

No,  I  shall  not  burn  my  fingers  again.  It 
is  most  curious  how  forgetful  one  becomes 
with  the  flight  of  years. 

But  forgetful  is  not  exactly  the  right  word. 
It  is  much  more  a  sort  of  half-unconscious 
perversion  of  actual  facts.  The  same  kind 
of  thing  as  parents  making  out  to  their  chil- 
dren and  almost  believing  it  themselves,  that 
when  they  were  children  they  were  absolute 
angels. 

Magna,  for  instance,  is  capable  of  self-de- 
lusion and  lying  with  regard  to  the  miseries 
of  her  dangerous  age.  Magna,  usually  the 
soul  of  truthfulness,  who  never  tries  to  make 
herself  out  better  than  she  is,  apparently  be- 
lieves that  she  got  over  those  difficult  years 
easily  and  calmly.     Good  Godl 

206 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

For  once  we  nearly  grew  angry  with  one 
another.  I  maintained  that  it  was  nothing 
to  be  ashamed  of,  but  rather  an  honour,  that 
she  had  afterwards  matured  into  the  magnifi- 
cent, vigorous  creature  she  now  is. 

But  she  wouldn't  hear  of  it.  The  only 
thing  she  would  admit  was  Oluf,  and  she  only 
did  that  because  he  is  flesh  and  blood. 

We  both  became  vehement,  and  in  the  end 
Magna  went  the  length  of  asserting  in  her  ex- 
citement that  I  had  been  far  more  affected  by 
the  critical  years  than  she  and  Lili  Rothe  put 
together  I 

It  was  useless  to  protest  against  such  a  ludi- 
crous mis-statement  of  facts.  But  we  very 
soon  made  it  up  again,  and  played  our  game 
of  Friday  bridge.  Unfortunately  Kelly  had 
not  come  in  with  Magna. 

He  and  Oluf  had  to  sit  up  all  night  with  a 
sick  cow.  It  would  have  sufficed  if  one  of 
them  had  done  it,  but  where  Kelly  is  there 
Oluf  will  be  also. 

207 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

God  bless  Magna  for  her  way  of  chatting^ 
about  the  two  boys.  I  devour  the  words  asn 
they  fall  from  her  lips.  It  is  so  splendid  to 
hear  her.  Magna  thinks  it  will  be  a  good 
thing  for  Kelly  if  he  marries  in  a  year  or  two 
...  it  seems  almost  as  if  she  had  fixed  on 
some  one  already.  What  if  it  should  be  to  the 
new  dairy-maid?  Well,  I  should  not  mind, 
so  long  as  it  was  for  my  boy's  happiness.  In 
that  event  we  must  think  of  taking  a  farm  for 
Kelly,  for  Kelly  and  Oluf. 

* 

It  would  interest  me  to  prove  to  Magna 
who  was  right.  If  I  could  bring  myself  to 
reading  through  once  more  what  I  wrote 
down  in  those  days  .  .  .  yes,  I  will  to-mor- 
row. 


I  am  ashamed,  oh,  how  ashamed  I  am!     It 
is  not  fancy  or  forgery.     I  wrote  every  word 

208 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

,i  it  in  circumstances  which  bear  witness  to 
^he  honesty  of  the  writer.  I  can  never  look 
either  Magna  or  Jeanne  in  the  face  again 
...  or  in  my  boy's. 

Not  I  who  have  a  thousand  times  dreamed 
and  wished  with  all  my  heart  that  I  had 
brought  him  into  the  world  I  I  can  only 
hang  my  head  now  and  be  thankful  that  he 
never  had  such  a  person  for  his  mother. 

I,  I,  who  strutted  about  like  a  peacock, 
proud  of  my  own  perfections;  I,  who  pointed 
the  finger  of  scorn  at  others;  I,  who  pre- 
sumed with  the  rights  of  a  judge  to  condemn 
or  pardon  others,  inwardly  jubilating  trium- 
phantly, "Thank  God  I  am  not  as  other  men 
are." 

That  can  never  be  erased,  never  made 
good. 

Now  that  I  have  reached  the  evening  of  my 

days,  and  my  one  occupation  is  to  sit  and  look 

out  of  the  window  at  the  people  who  pass,  and 

dream  happy  dreams  for  my  boy,  I  commit 

»4  209 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

no  thought  or  deed  that  needs  the  veil  of 
oblivion. 

But  then,  when  I  was  in  my  prime  .  .  . 
when  I  might  have  applied  my  gifts  for  use- 
fulness and  pleasure — I  was  such  a  .  .  . 

The  memory  of  it  can  never  be  wiped  out. 
It  can  never  be  made  good. 

And  I  had  thought  that  Kelly  was  to  read 
it  all  after  my  death,  so  that  he  might  learn  to 
know  what  I  really  was;  learn  to  despise  me 
as  I  lay  in  my  grave  ...  I  have  had  the  fire 
lit  though  it  is  summer.  I  intend  to  destroy 
every  line.     Every  line! 

But  will  that  prevent  Kelly  beholding  me 
in  all  my  pitiableness?  Am  I  such  a  coward? 
Such  a  coward?  .  .  .  No,  Kelly  shall  read  it, 
every  scrap  when  I  am  dead. 

Then  he  shall  see  what  a  deplorable, 
wretched  creature  I  was  till  love  entered  my 
life,  when  he  did.  Then  he  shall  know  the 
great  miracle  which  love  wrought. 

210 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

Kelly  has  a  claim  to  me  in  bad  as  well  as 
good.  .  .  . 

I  feel  to-day  so  ineffably  tired.  It  seems 
as  if  this  day  were  to  be  my  last.  The  day  of 
judgment,  when  I  am  to  stand  face  to  face 
with  myself. 

But  the  day  of  judgment  is  to  be  followed 
by  regeneration.  Kelly  is  to  be  my  regenera- 
tion. Not  for  myself  do  I  pray  to  be  granted 
a  year,  an  hour;  I  pray  for  Kelly's  sake  alone, 
that  our  meeting  that  night  may  not  have  been 
in  vain.  This  prayer  throbs  from  my  lips 
into  Eternity. 

Will  it  be  heard? 


* 


There  are  the  bells  chiming  for  vespers. 
Now  Kelly  is  coming  home  from  his  work, 
so  tall,  strong,  and  healthy.  They  are  busy 
with   the  spring  ploughing,  and   to-morrow 

211 


ELSIE  LINDTNER 

will  be  Sunday.  Then  I  shall  see  him,  have 
him  to  myself.  .  .  . 

Kelly,  Kelly  .  .  .  why  aren't  you  here  at 
this  hour?  Kelly,  I  want  to  see  you,  and  to 
thank  you. 

Be  good  ...  be  happy.  .  .  . 


212 


THE   DANGEROUS  AGE 

BY 

Karin  Michaelis 

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"One  can  hardly  fail  to  be  heartily  in  accord  with  Marcel 
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plays. As  a  piece  of  fiction  of  unique  form  and  substance, 
written  with  unusual  skill  and  artistic  feeHng,  the  book  is  worth 
reading." — New  York  Times 

"The  book  will  have  a  powerful  appeal  for  a  great  many 
women." — New  York  Herald 

"An  admirable  piece  of  workmanship,  both  subtle  and  sin- 
cere *  *  *  Fine  literary  taste  and  an  artistic  reticence  are  char- 
acteristics of  this  Danish  woman's  method." — New  York  Sun 

"An  extraordinary  document,  and  reveals  the  feminine  soul 
of  all  time." — Boston  Evening  Herald 

"It  is  not  a  record  of  deeds,  but  of  thoughts;  as  such  it 
will  attract  many  who  think,  and  who  have  had  experience 
with  life." — Cincinnati  Times-Star 

"The  author's  great  success  came  with  'The  Dangerous  Age," 
in  which  she  bares  the  very  soul  of  a  woman  with  the  relentless 
sternness  of  the  surgeon  and  the  power  of  expression  of  the 
literary  artist." — Philadelphia  Public  Ledger 

"The  book  is  sure  to  appeal  to  women  and  those  interested 
in  the  study  of  feminism." — Detroit  News 

"The  book  is  admirably  written,  never  extreme,  always  chaste 
in  language,  but  fascinatingly  leaving  much  to  the  imagination. 
Will  interest  all  readers." — Pittsburg  Dispatch 


JOHN   LANE   CO.,     NEW  YORK 


AN   UNOFFICIAL   HONEYMAN 

BY 

Dolf  Wyllarde 

Author  of  "The  Rat  Trap,"  "The  Riding  Master,"  etc. 

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"A  strong  story  in  more  senses  than  literary,  and  well 
worth  the  reading." — New  York  Times 

"A  distinct  achievement  in  the  realm  of  fiction,  and  should 
add  to  the  laurels  the  writer  has  already  won.  The  theme  is 
an  old  one — a  man  and  a  woman  cast  upon  an  uninhabited  is- 
land— but  the  handling  of  it  is  new  and  in  Miss  Wyllarde's  best 
stvle.  The  descriptions  are  vivid  and  realistic  *  *  *  The  story 
is  told  with  unusual  vigor.  It  is  human,  simple,  convincing  and 
absorbing." — Boston  Herald 

"As  interesting  as  the  first  sea  story  ever  written;  a  fresh, 
vividly-told  tale." — Baltimore  Evening  News 

"A  highly  entertaining  story  for  the  lover  of  adventure,  a 
sort  of  modernized  Eobinson  Crusoe,  with  a  heroine  to  take 
the  place  of  Goodman  Friday." — Chicago  Evening  Post 

"Brilliant  writing  and  realistic  psychology." — New  York  Sun 

"The  book  is  more  than  an  entertaining  story." 

— Boston  Globe 

"Miss  Wyllarde  invests  this  tale  with  a  keenly  attractive 
quality." — Washington  Evening  Star 

"Miss  Wyllarde  has  ability  above  the  average,  and  the  gift 
of  characterization   to   a   marked   degree." — Providence  Journal 

"There  is  a  fascination  in  reading  the  book  that  comes  to 
one  but  rarely  in  any  other  contingent  circumstance  that  is 
brought  up  in  the  present  day  pages  of  romance." 

— Cincinnati  Press  Leader 


JOHN    LANE   CO.,  NEW   YORK 


THE  UNKNOWN   WOMAN 

BY 

Anne  Warwick 

Author  of  "Compensation" 
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Frontispiece  and  Jacket  Illustration  by  Will  Grefe 

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even  more — because  of  the  author's  undoubted  mastery  in  re- 
producing a  certain  modern  atmosphere." — A'^^w  York  Times 

"An  exceptionally  good  piece  of  work,  planned  on  a  large 
scale  and  executed  with  an  able,  firm  hand.  A  tale  of  one  of 
the  most  interesting  phases  of  the  life  of  contemporary  New 
York — of  the  line  where  art  and  intellect  and  wealth  meet." 

— New  York  Tribune 

"There  are  clever  and  original  things  here;  the  book  is  well 
written." — New  York  Sun 

"Holds  the  interest  very  well." — New  York  Evening  Globe 

"Brilliant  and  charming  bits  of  life." 

— Washington  Evening  Star 

"Its  conversational  parts  are  lively  and  entertaining  and  its 
descriptions  interesting." — Buffalo  Commercial 

"A  strong,  vital  story  of  the  artistic  and  business  life  of 
New  York." — Brooklyn  Eagle 

"The  person  who  likes  dialogue  will  find  the  book  fascinat- 
ing. The  author  has  a  genuinely  sincere  purpose  in  her  method 
of  depicting  life.  A  handsome  frontispiece  in  color  by  Will 
Grefe  enhances  the  appearance  of  the  book." 

— Cincinnati  Times-Star 

"There  is  a  Bohemian  atmosphere  about  the  story,  which  is 
laid  in  Rome  and  New  York,  that  is  most  appcalino:,  and  it  is 
so  dramatic  and  interesting  in  treatment  and  theme,  and  the 
plot  itself  is  so  absorbing,  that  'The  Unknown  Woman'  is  quite 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  books  of  the  year." 

—Salt  Lake  City  Herald 


JOHN   LANE    CO.,   NEW  YORK 


WINGS  OF  DESIRE 

BY 

M.  P.  Willcocks 

Author  of  "A  Man  of  Genius,"  "The  Way  Up,"  etc. 
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"So  far  as  it  deals  with  the  problems  of  the  modem  wo- 
man, or  rather,  with  the  modern  woman's  new  way  of  facing 
a  problem  that  is  as  old  as  life — that  of  love — the  book  is  curi- 
ously revelatory." — New  York  Tribune 

"The  story  of  the  woman  who  forces  herself  on  the  weak- 
ling to  save  him  from  himself  is  good  work." — New  York  Sun 

"The  story  is  so  remarkable  for  its  analytical  power,  its 
minute  observation,  its  sense  of  background,  its  delicate  style  as 
literature,  that  it  arrests  and  holds,  and  calls  the  reader  back 
again  and  again." — Boston  Evening  Transcript 

"The  right  of  woman  to  her  own  individuality  is  the  book's 
chief  inspiration.  It  is  for  serious  minds,  and  to  such  provides 
much  food  for  thought." — Springfield  Republican 

"The  author  handles  her  characters  as  might  a  true  mother 
her  children — ^knowing,  yet  not  specially  noting,  the  faults  and 
virtues  of  all.  The  style  is  clear  and  terse  to  incisiveness,  and 
almost  every  page  has  its  sage  or  witty  saying.  It  isn't  an  easy 
story  to  lay  aside  unfinished." — Chicago  Record  Herald 

"Much  of  beauty  and  truth,  with  occasional  instances  of 
vivid  strength." — Chicago  Evening  Post 

"There  is  in  all  Miss  Willcocks'  stories  a  certain  quality  that 
makes  for  the  heights.  She  has  a  precious  vocabulary.  The 
realism  that  distinguishes  her  never  for  a  moment  extinguishes 
her  grace  of  style  or  charm.  She  is  essentially  an  artist  who  of- 
fends neither  by  useless  detail  nor  disappoints  by  leaving  too 
much  to  the  reader's  imagination.  Always  she  handles  her  wis- 
dom and  wit  perfectly,  while  she  presents  her  stories  powerfully. 
This  is  a  book  to  read  and  keep." — Philadelphia  Record 

"Her  technique  is  good,  her  details  are  exceedingly  well 
handled,  and  her  study  of  types  is  most  delightful." 

— Louisville  Post 


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HECTOR   GRAEME 

BY 

Evel}^  Brentwood 
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told  and  the  conception  of  the  central  character  is  extremely 
interesting." — New  York   Times 

"A  remarkable  book.  The  study  of  that  virile  character, 
Hector  Graeme,  is  exceedingly  powerful.  The  gripping  power 
of  the  novel  is  undeniable  and  its  psychology  sure-based." 

— Boston  Evening  Transcript 

"One  of  the  most  convincing  novels  of  military  life  ever 
written." — Rochester  Post  Express 

"One  of  the  strongest  pieces  of  fiction  to  reach  this  desk  for 
many  a  month.  It  is  a  character  study  of  the  sort  that  may  be 
honestly  described  as  unusnal."— Cleveland  Plain  Dealer 

SEKHET 

BY 

Irene  Miller 
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"A  novel  of  genuine  dramatic  power.  Its  pages  are  marked 
by  a  strong,  cumulative  interest.  It  is  a  long  while  since  a 
novel  of  greater  dramatic  force  has  claimed  our  attention." 

— New  York  Herald 

"To  those  aweary  of  novels  that  are  not  novel,  and  stories 
that  lack  blood  and  bone  and  sinew,  'Sekhet'  will  seem  as  manna 
to  hungry  palates.  It  is  as  human  a  document  as  one  might 
find.  Its  characters  live  today,  and  love  and  sin  and  die,  just 
as  surely  as  the  author  relates.  A  better  sermon  than  is  often 
preached,  a  better  novel  than  is  often  written,  describes  the 
book  exactly." — Philadelphia  Record 

"A  powerfully  written  tale  with  marvellous  descriptive  bits 
and  very  strong  character  drawing — a  story  which  grips  the 
emotions  from  the  start." — Nashville  Anterican 


JOHN   LANE   CO.,    NEW  YORK 


EARTH 

BY 

Muriel  Hine 

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graph in  all  its  pages." — Boston  Globe 

"The  story  is  pleasantly  told." — Washington  Evening  Star 

"The  tale  is  -veil  written  and  has  a  good  plot  and  the  char- 
acter delineation  is  well  done." — Sati  Francisco  Call 


HALF  IN  EARNEST 

BY 

Muriel  Hine 

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"The  story  compels  interest  from  first  to  last." 

— Nev:  York  Times 

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est— lies  in  the  conflict  of  character  and  will  between  the  two 
protagonists." — New  York  Evening  Post 

"A  well  built,  well  written  talc." — Washington  Evening  Star 

"Holds  the  interest,  being  well  constructed  and  smootljily 
told." — Washington  Herald 


JOHN    LANE    CO.,   NEW  YORK 


THE  STORY  OF    A  PLOUGHBOY 

BY 

James  Bryce 

With  an  Introduction  by  Edwin  Markham 
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"A  big  story,  bearing  the  blood  prints  of  reality." 

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tuality, will  feel  so  strongly  the  grip  of  a  living,  human  hand 
through  all  its  page"?  that  he  can  hardly  help  rejoicing,  as  for 
a  friend,  that  the  lad  lives  true  to  his  vision  and  the  man  to 
his  final  glimpse  of  the  solidarity  of  mankind." 

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"This  'Story  of  a  Ploughboy'  ought  to  rouse  people  to  the 
degrading  effects  on  men  of  unremitting,  unregulated,  unsweet- 
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boys  of  the  world  who  make  the  fortunes  of  the  rich.  It  is  a 
most  unusual  story  and  makes  a  good  impression." 

— New  York  Evening  Globe 

"Three  of  the  greatest  merits  that  any  book  can  have  can- 
not be  denied  to  this  story :  it  is  a  book  of  good  faith ;  it  is  a 
book  of  vital  actuality,  and  it  is  a  book  for  men." 

— New  York  Herald 

"The  pictures  of  life  and  labor  are  admirably  well  done, 
and  if  the  book  does  preach  socialism,  it  preaches  it  logically  and 
convincingly." — James  L.  Ford  in  New  York  Herald 

"To  read  this  story  that  quivers  with  the  pathos  and  passion 
of  life  is  to  get  a  keener  and  kindlier  vision  of  our  mortal  ex- 
istence."— Buffalo  Com  wercial 

"Those  who  are  interested  in  stories  with  a  sociological 
trend  will  be  charmed  with  this  history,  minute  and  graphic,  of 
a  ploughboy." — BtcffaJo  Express 

"A  record  of  a  young  man's  life — one  of  the  most  popular 
themes  of  today.  The  story  has  pathos,  sincerity  of  intention, 
and  all  the  multiplied  details  of  realism  that  make  happy  the 
heart  of  the  reader  on   Socialistic  problems." 

— Baltimore  Evening  News 


JOHN   LANE   CO.,    NEW   YORK 


AWAKENING 

BY 

Maud  Diver 

Author  of  "Candles  in  the  Wind,"  "Captain  Des- 
mond, V.C."  and  "The  Great  Amulet" 

Cloth  i2mo  $1-30  net  Postage  12  cents 

"A  story  of  very  human  interest,  a  careful  study  well 
thought  out  in  all  its  possibilities." — Boston  Evening  Transcript 

"A  most  delightful  and  enjoyable  story." — Boston  Times 

"This  is  a  story  told  with  a  good  deal  of  poesy  and  power, 
a  story  disclosing  and  suggesting  much  of  the  inner  life  of  two 
great  civihzations." — New  York  American 

"Apart  from  its  romantic  interest  the  book  has  good  literary 
style." — New  York  Herald 

"Mrs.  Diver's  sympathetic  appreciation  of  the  Indian  point 
of  view  is  remarkable  and  could  only  come  from  long  experi- 
ence."— Providence  Journal 

"Even  the  most  enthusiastic  admirer  of  Maud  Diver's  pre- 
vious works  will  not  hesitate  to  say  that  'Awakening*  is  the 
greatest  book  she  has  yet  given  us." — Cleveland  Town  Topics 

"The  author  is  a  word  painter  and  her  story  gives  her  plenty 
of  opportunity  to  show  her  talent.  Many  of  the  situations  are 
exquisitely  tendered  and  are  brought  out  with  a  delicacy  of  touch 
that  is  worthy  of  a  poet." — Albany  Argus 

"Like  the  other  works  by  the  same  author,  'Awakening'  is 
marked  by  excellent  diction  and  delicate  touch  of  descriptive 
powers." — Chicago  Journal 

"The  story  is  engrossing." — Detroit  Free  Press 


JOHN   LANE   CO.,    NEW  YORK 


THE     BEACON 

BY 

Eden  Phillpotts 

Author  of  "The  Thief  of  Virtue,"  "Demeter's 
Daughter,"  etc. 

Cloth  i2mo  $1-30  net  Postage  12  cents 

"One  is  lost  in  the  beauty  of  imagination  of  the  word  paint- 
ings of  Dartmoor,  and  absorbed  by  the  thoughtful  study  of  hu- 
man nature." — The  Outlook 

"The  book  has  the  usual  excellences  of  clearness  and  pic- 
turesqueness." — The  Nation 

"We  seldom  see  such  strong  buffets  of  wit  in  present  day 
stories.    The  book  has  greatly  pleased  us." — New  York  Sun 

"The  dramatic  power  of  plot  and  characters  of  the  tale  arc 
undeniable.  Mr.  Phillpotts  remains  an  admirable  artist  in  the 
maturity  of  his  powers." — New  York  Tribune 

"The  tale  in  its  mingled  tragedy  and  comedy  is  admirable 
and  holds  the  attention.  The  people  are  alive  and  interesting. 
This  book  ranks  high." — New  York  Herald 

"No  one  who  has  once  begun  to  read  'The  Beacon'  will  fail 
to  read  eagerly  to  the  end." — New  York  Evening  Mail 

"As  a  prose  poem  of  great  beauty,  those  parts  that  sing  the 
beauty  of  Cosdon  will  delight  the  reader." — Chicago  Evening  Post 

"A  problem  worked  out  in  a  way  that  must  fascinate  any 
thoughtful  reader." — Chicago  Record  Herald 

"There  is  a  flavor  of  a  whole  portion  of  humanity  in  Mr. 
Phillpotts'  men  of  the  soil  that  makes  his  novels  much  more 
than  passing  fiction.  There  is  also  the  aroma,  the  color,  the  aus- 
terity of  the  moors  that  creates  an  atmosphere  long  remembered. 
Both  will  be  found  at  their  best  in  'The  Beacon.' " 

—Boston  Herald 


JOHN   LANE   CO.,    NEW  YORK 


MANALIVE 

BY 

Gilbert  K.  Chesterton 

Author  of  "The  Innocence  of  Father  Brown," 
"Herectics,"  "Orthodoxy,"  etc. 

Cloth  i2mo  $1-30  net  Postage  12  cents 

Frontispiece  and  Jacket  Illustration  by  Will  Foster 

"Mr.  Chesterton  has  undertaken  in  this  quaint  narrative  to 
make  burlesque  the  vehicle  of  a  sermon  and  a  philosophy.  It 
is  all  a  part  of  the  author's  war  upon  artificial  attitudes  which 
enclose  the  living  men  like  a  shell  and  make  for  human  purposes 
a  dead  man  of  him.  He  speaks  here  in  a  parable — a  parable  of 
his  own  kind,  having  about  it  a  broad  waggishness  like  that  of 
Mr.  Punch  and  a  distinct  flavor  of  that  sort  of  low  comedy  which 
one  finds  in  Dickens  and  Shakespeare.  You  are  likely  to  find, 
before  you  are  done  with  the  parable,  that  there  has  been  forced 
upon  your  attention  a  possible  view  of  the  life  worth  living. 
'Manalive'  is  a  'Peterpantheistic'  novel  full  of  Chestertonisms." 

— New  York  Times 

"One  of  the  oddest  books  Mr.  Chesterton  has  yet  given  us." 

— New  York  Evening  Globe 

"The  fun  of  the  book  (and  there  is  plenty  of  it)  comes  quite 
as  much  from  the  extraordinary  and  improbable  characters  as 
from  the  situations.  Epigrams,  witticisms,  odd  fancies,  queer 
conceits,  singular  whimsies,  follow  after  one  another  in  quick 
succession." — Brooklyn  Eagle 

"One  of  the  most  humorous  tales  of  modern  fiction,  com- 
bined with  a  very  tender  and  appealing  loye  story." 

— Cleveland  Plain  Dealer 

"The  book  is  certain  to  have  a  wide  circulation,  not  only 
because  of  the  name  of  the  aut'..or  attached  to  it,  but  because 
of  its  own  intrinsic  worth." — Buffalo  Commercial 

"There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  iridescent  brilliance  of  the 
book.  Page  after  page — full  of  caustic  satire,  humorous  sally  and 
profound  epigram — fairly  bristles  v/ith  merriment.  The  book  is 
a  compact  mass  of  scintillating  wit." — Philadelphia  Public  Ledger 


JOHN    LANE   CO.,   NEW   YORK 


THE  INNOCENCE  OF  FATHER  BROWN 

BY 

Gilbert  K.  Chesterton 

Author  of  "Manalive,"  "Orthodoxy,"  "Heretics,"  etc. 

Cloth  i2mo  $1-30  net  Postage  12  cents 

Illustrations  by  Will  Foster 

"Mr.  Chesterton  writes  extremely  good  detective  stories — 
detective  stories  the  more  fascinating  because  if  there  is  about 
them  a  hint  of  irony,  there  is  also  more  than  a  hint  of  poetry 
and  a  shadow — or,  if  you  will,  a  glow — of  the  mystic  and  the 
supernatural." — New  York  Times 

"The  stories  are  entertaining;  the  mysteries  and  their  solu- 
tions are  ingenius  and  interesting." — New  York  Sun 

"The  stories  are  vastly  entertaining,  and  excellent  specimens 
of  literary  craftsmanship  at  the  same  time." — The  Outlook 

"Never  were  philosophy,  ethics  and  religion  preached  in  a 
more  unusual  manner." — Chicago  Tribune 

"In  their  own  Chestertonic  realm,  the  stories  are  personal 
and  convincing;  full,  too,  of  the  charm  of  landscape.  The  author 
arranges  his  scenes  and  marshals  his  characters  with  an  artistic 
eye  worthy  of  a  Poe." — Chicago  Evening  Post 

"The  stories  have  a  charming  variety,  and  interest  in  them 
is  awakened  more  insidiously  than  in  the  average  story  dealing 
with  the  detection  of  crime." — Chicago  Record  Herald 

"Throughout  these  meteoric  adventures  there  is,  of  course, 
besides  Father  Brown  a  lot  of  Mr.  Chesterton  himself,  scintillat- 
ing along  the  way,  to  the  fascination  and  bedazzlement  of  the 
reader." — Washington  Evening  Star 

"The  stories  are  of  the  dashing  and  brilliant  kind  that 
Stevenson  invented — exciting  talcs  told  in  an  artistic  manner." 

— Albany  Argus 

JOHN   LANE   CO.,    NEW  YORK 


THE  GLORY  OF  CLEMENTINA 

BY 

William  J.  Locke 

Author  of  "The  Beloved  Vagabond,"  "Simon  the 

Jester,"  etc. 

Cloth  i2mo  $1-30  net  Postage  12  cents 

Illustrations  by  Arthur  I.  Keller 

"Mr.  Locke  has  succeeded  in  uniting  with  the  firm  careful- 
ness of  his  early  work  the  rapid,  fluent,  vibrating  style  that 
makes  his  later  books  so  delightful ;  therefore  it  is  easy  to  make 
the  deduction  that  'Clementina'  is  the  best  piece  of  work  he  has 
done." — New  York  Evening  Sun 

"Among  the  novels  of  the  past  five  years  no  books  have  more 
consistently  produced  an  effect  at  once  certain,  satisfactory  and 
delightful  than  those  of  William  J.  Locke.  This  latest  addition 
to  his  shelf  is  full  of  life  and  laughter  and  the  love  not  only  of 
man  for  woman  but  of  man  for  man  and  for  humanity.  Mr. 
Locke  is  a  born  story-teller  and  a  master  of  the  art  of  ex- 
pression."— The  Outlook 

"The  book  contains  a  mass  of  good  material,  with  original 
characterization,  and  is  written  in  a  style  piquant  and  clever." 

— The  Literary  Digest 

"A  story  containing  the  essence  of  humanity,  with  an  abun- 
dance of  sensible  and  sensitive,  casual  and  unobtrusive  com- 
mentary upon  life  and  man,  and  especially  upon  woman." 

— Boston  Evening  Transcript 

"It  contains  even  more  of  the  popular  qualities  than  are  us- 
ually associated  with  the  writings  of  this  noted  author." 

— Boston  Times 

"Mr.  Locke's  flights  into  the  realms  of  fancy  have  been  a 
delight  to  many  readers.  He  has  a  lightness  of  touch  that  is 
entirely  captivating,  and  his  remarkable  characterization  of  in- 
consequent people  gives  them  a  reality  that  is  very  insistent." 

— Baltimore  Evening  Sun 

"Never  has  he  drawn  so  deeply  from  that  well  that  is  the 
human  heart ;  never  so  near  those  invisible  heights  which  are 
the  soul;  and,  if  we  are  not  altogether  mistaken,  'The  Glory  of 
Clementina'  will  also  prove  to  be  that  of  its  author." 

— Baltimore  News 

"A  fascinating  story  with  delicate,  whimsical  touches." 

— Albany  Times-Union 

"The  book  seems  destined  to  live  longer  than  any  written 
by  the  author  to  date,  because  it  is  so  sane  and  so  fundamen- 
tallv  true." — Philadelphia  Enquirer 

JOHN    LANE   CO.,   NEW  YORK 


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